Chapter 5:

The next few days of the journey were blessedly uneventful. There were no more pursuers, no ambushers lying in wait for the diminutive caravan. It seemed they had well and truly exhausted any concerted effort by the enemy to impede their progress. Yet none of them flagged in their vigilance, all too aware that they were following in the footsteps of evil incarnate.

Another monotonous day of scanning the endless sands was reaching its noontide when Dana spied the rippling of water in the distance. She might have thought it a mirage had she not already known that the Rakkisroad cut through the unimaginatively named Far Oasis. It was the last watering hole for caravans out of Lut Gholein before the great expanse of the desert stretching west all the way to the Tamoe mountains.

"The Oasis is within sight!" she cried out as she rode back within shouting range of the others.

"Finally!" Warriv exclaimed. "That means we're no more than two days out from our final destination."

The prospect of impending salvation put a smile on everyone's faces, not to mention the thought of the oasis' crystal-clear waters. The sorceress had had to conjure ice into a bucket and leave it out in the sun for their drinking water over the last day, an ignominious use of her magics as far as she was concerned, yet one that she had carried out with dignified resignation.

Everyone looked forward to a cool bath after weeks of accumulated sand and grime, and when they reached the edge of the oasis some of them ran ahead, hoping to jump bodily into the nearest pool. Yet what they found instead was a mire, the still waters clouded and befouled by unknown substances as uncomfortably large insects buzzed above the surface. The disgruntled sounds could be heard at the back of the caravan.

Galen scanned the surroundings as he approached with his companions: the houses seemed abandoned, and the date trees lay heavy with their unharvested fruit. This in itself was hardly cause for alarm, considering what had happened to Mafqud. The locals would have fled to the safety of Lut Gholein's walls as soon as word had reached them. The absence of any cadavers, animated or otherwise, further allayed his concerns.

"Wonderful," Talia complained as she joined him, wrinkling her nose at the sight of the fetid waters. "I suppose it's back to the bucket for me, then."

"Don't be hasty," the paladin chuckled. "I have some magic of my own."

With that, he knelt in prayer by the waterside, closing his eyes and placing a hand on the pool's grimy surface. A pristine white light waxed around him, the aura of life and purification he had learned to call upon in the desperate fight against Andariel. From his hand the light rippled out across the water, and as it spread the taint was burned away.

Soon the pond had been wholly purified, and the would-be bathers crowded around in preparation for a nice dip.

"Back, you birdbrained fools!" Warriv yelled out as he dispersed them angrily. "No one's taking a swim in our drinking water until we've resupplied! Bring out the barrels!"

"Haaaah!" Dana protested with a huff. "I was looking forward to getting out of this armor and into the water."

The thought that he too was looking forward to such a sight briefly crossed Galen's head but he inwardly chided himself for thinking it. He could not dispel the fluttering the image had conjured in his stomach, however.

"Just a quick dip," Ko'kal bargained, "I really need to cool off." He was drenched in sweat, his skin had turned red over the course of the desert journey, and the chafing of his armor was clearly causing him pain. It seemed the natural resilience of northmen did not extend to sunburns.

"No exceptions!" Warriv grunted firmly as he desperately tried to jostle the much bigger man away from the water's edge. The latter yielded, though not without muttering what Galen assumed to be very colorful language in his native tongue.

"Come, blood brother," the paladin consoled, "I'm sure Talia will be more than happy to blow some icy winds your way while we help unload the barrels."

"I don't like how cavalier everyone is becoming with my talents," the sorceress baulked. "Stop bellyaching, big man, you've been through worse than a little heatstroke."

"Easy for you to say," the barbarian grumbled. "You're made for these climes. And all Galen and Dana have suffered from this infernal sun is a nice tan."

"That the amazon's complexion shifts so easily is no wonder," Talia turned to the paladin, "but I'm surprised a Westerling like you has not wilted in this heat."

"My grandfather was from Kurast," the knight replied as he climbed aboard the wagon with the water. "The blood of Kehjistan runs through my veins as well, though perhaps not as thick as yours."

"And what's this one's excuse?" Ko'kal demanded, pointing at Cyrus who was walking up from the rear of the caravan.

The necromancer was as deathly pale as ever, as though the sun held no sway over him. His hood was up, but that alone could not explain his strangely stubborn pallor; the fact that he had yet to suffocate in his thick black robes was also a mystery.

Galen simply shrugged as he unceremoniously dumped an empty barrel into his cranky companion's arms. The teamsters followed suit and soon everyone was busy refilling the caravan's supply of water.

Close by, Razan was playing on the water's edge, looking for smooth stones to bounce off the pond's surface. The ones he found were somewhat jagged, and only ricocheted once before sinking. He was growing frustrated in his search when he spied a big, smooth black stone buried in the sand. Gripped by curiosity, he attempted to pry it out, but as soon as his hand touched it a small arc of lightning jumped and burned his palm.

No sooner had he retracted his hand than the stone began to move. It vibrated, slowly rising from the ground as the sand fell away from its onyx-like surface. It was much bigger than it had first appeared, and as the boy fell back screaming the thing that emerged before him was no rock, but a black scarab the size of a man, its sharp claws ready to strike.

The creature pounced, but instead of the soft flesh of its target it encountered the hard steel of Dana's spear, who had reacted with blinding speed to intervene. The giant insectoid impaled itself, but the amazon's triumph was short-lived; a vicious stream of lightning burst from the wound, searing its way through her weapon and into her body.

Mustering what focus she could through gritted teeth, she pushed the creature down on its back and plunged her spear tip straight through its abdomen, grounding it. The lightning dissipated into the sand as the beetle struggled vainly in its death throes.

She did not have time to turn to check on the boy as the entire waterfront erupted into chaos. More scarabs emerged, and before the caravan could organize a response giant maggots burst from the sands around it, snatching hapless humans with their powerful mandibles and dragging them into unseen tunnels below.

Razan ran away from the water's edge in sheer terror, dragging his shaking limbs somewhere, anywhere. The sands around him moved threateningly, and he dimly heard his uncle's voice calling out his name in the confusion; something about not moving, yet his panic drowned out any meaning in the words. More of the giant insects appeared, nipping at his heels. His uncle was now running to him. There were only a few yards away from each other.

Galen was also rushing towards the youth but he knew he would not make it in time. Time seemed to slow as a sand maggot caught up with Razan, but before it could snatch him his uncle interposed his body and wrestled with the creature with his bare hands. The struggle kicked up a cloud of sand that the paladin soon burst through, yet looking around he found no trace of either man or insect. Enraged, he plunged his sword into the sand with a cry, as if to strike at the enemy below.

"Uncle?" came the quivering question from a tearful Razan.

Galen grit his teeth, sheathed his sword and picked up the teenager, rushing towards one of the wagons.

Deckard Cain, who had been giving his old legs a much-needed stretch, had suddenly found himself set upon by a pair of hungry mandibles that decided one leg in particular needed to be stretched beyond its breaking point. The old man cried out in pain as his calf was mangled, but the pressure soon abated as a hail of ectoplasmic teeth shredded his assailant. Cyrus rushed to his side.

"Elder, get back to the wagons!" the necromancer urged.

"I won't get far like this," Cain grunted as he nursed his bleeding leg.

The priest of Rathma cursed; he had refrained from summoning undead minions on the road, so as not to unnerve the rest of the caravan. He looked around, trying to anticipate the next threat; there was no telling where the overgrown bugs would strike from. He closed his eyes, muttering a chant as his will reached deep beneath the sands. He raised his hands, and giant ribs rose from the ground in tandem, forming a protective cage around both he and the Horadrim.

Just in time, it seemed. Another couple of maggots burst forth, only to gnaw fruitlessly at the barrier of bone. Cyrus smirked evilly, raising a hand wreathed in ghostly fire.

"Aaah, good. Volunteers."

Meanwhile, Galen was placing his charge in the relative safety of the wooden vehicle.

"Whatever happens, stay inside," he urged the distressed boy but the latter refused to let go of him, crying unintelligibly.

"I will find your uncle and bring him back safely. I promise," the Paladin reassured him, placing a comforting hand on the youth's head, before turning and charging back into the fray.

His companions were furiously trying to fend off the unexpected assault with the help of the disorganized guard, but they could not be everywhere at once. Some of the teamsters jumped into the water, hoping to find safety away from the sands, but this seemed to agitate the local flies. They swarmed angrily, gathering into a stinging, gnawing cloud that immediately set upon the trespassers.

At first the humans simply sought to swat them away, but as screams of agony began to rise from those who were overwhelmed it soon became apparent these were no regular insects. A demonic taint lay upon them, and steel could do little against their nebulous numbers. Only Talia was able to significantly harm them with fields of static and icy blasts.

The chaotic fray grew more desperate; there were no battle lines, no ways to form a perimeter to shield the regular folk. Galen's mounting frustration burned hotter by the minute, as he witnessed more and more of the people under his care succumb. He furiously hacked away at anything with more than two legs, yet within him a deafening silence was growing despite the stinging, the buzzing, the surrounding bedlam. A deep, all-encompassing yearning to cleanse the world of all impurity, to burn away all filth ignited within him; with a great cry to the heavens his aura turned to fire, blazing like the noon sun above.

Every swarming fly around him was instantly vaporized, and the nearby maggots were badly scorched, yet to his allies it felt no different than the desert heat. Ko'kal, who had been swinging madly against the swarm to little avail, suddenly found himself free to focus on the bigger targets, to which he took with renewed glee. He carved his way to the water's edge to help Dana with the dune beetles. One of them was trying to sneak up on the amazon as she peppered its brethren with javelins; the barbarian leapt and brought down his axe in a single massive blow that split its torso in twain. Lightning arced up the axe to singe his arms but the Northman simply bellowed in laughter at the mild pain.

He saw movement from the corner of his eye and was about to attack but realized it was one of Cyrus' pets; a misshapen abomination made from twisted insectoid flesh, not unlike the one he had conjured from Andariel's giant spiders. It mauled its former kin and the barbarian followed suit. Soon the beetles and the swarm lay dead or incinerated, and the attacks from below were met with swift steel. The sand maggots receded; the chaos and confusion that had reigned a few moments earlier were replaced by a wary calm. None dared to relax their stance or move about for a long time, but eventually it became clear that the immediate danger had passed.

"Gather the folk and load the water onto the wagons as fast as you can!" the paladin ordered the guardsmen. "The rest of you, help me look for survivors."

He and his companions spread out to tend to those who had not been lost to the sands. Many were horribly stung but alive, some were bleeding profusely, and to those the paladin provided healing.

"How are we going to bet back those who were taken below?" Ko'kal asked the fateful question. He was using his axe as a shovel to dig, but the only thing other than sand he could find were the small tunnels the maggots had dug; they were lined with a sticky mucus to hold the walls together but looked structurally unsound at best.

"It's useless" Cyrus retorted as he returned from his search. "They've already been eaten by now. There are no more survivors."

"You don't know that," the paladin replied curtly.

"I don't think I can fit though there," the barbarian said as he nodded to one of the tunnels he had uncovered.

"Even if we could," the necromancer replied, "we'd have to crawl through; we'd be in no position to fight these things."

"I think I found something!" the amazon called out from a nearby dune.

The others joined her to discover that the "dune" in question was in fact the mound formed by a huge tunnel that opened towards the east. It looked just like the other tunnels made by the sand maggots, except it was ten times bigger.

"What manner of creature could make this?" Galen wondered aloud.

"I'm not sure I wish to find out," Talia replied.

"And yet we must brave whatever dangers lie within. I will not abandon these folk to such a horrible fate."

"This is a fool's errand," Cyrus demurred. "These creatures are not some bandits holding captives for ransom, they are hungry beasts that have snatched themselves a meal. All we will find down there is corpses, if we find anything at all. Not to mention we'll likely run into whatever monstrosity dug that tunnel in the first place."

"Promises, promises," the barbarian quipped as he hefted his axe eagerly.

"He's not wrong, Galen," the amazon concurred. "I have never known a predator to show temperance in devouring its prey. And the longer we stay here the greater the chance of a renewed attack."

"Enough!" the knight interjected. "I will hear no more. I'm going in, anyone who wishes to can follow. The rest can go back."

And with that he walked determinedly into the looming darkness of the tunnel, with Ko'kal close behind.

The necromancer headed back to the wagons, his pet in lockstep. With a sigh, Dana turned to the sorceress.

"Go with Cyrus; some of us should stay and guard the caravan."

With that, she resigned herself to go after the two men who had once brought her back from the edge of despair.


"Seems the corpse lover was right," Ko'kal remarked offhandedly as they stumbled upon the half-eaten remains of yet another former member of their caravan.

Galen did not respond, but his steely expression only further hardened. They had fumbled and fought their way through the dark labyrinthine tunnels beneath the sands for what felt like an eternity, and their failure to find any survivors seemed to aggravate him more with each step. Any giant maggot unlucky enough to find itself in his path was butchered with a zealous fury that stood in stark contrast with the knight's usually more studied swordplay.

Dana could see that a fell mood had come over her companion, but she held her tongue. By now she knew the stubborn young man well enough to know that he would not be swayed from his purpose once he had set his mind to it. Still, the feeling that they were wasting their time grew by the minute, and the next discovery of a teamster's corpse prompted her to break her silence.

"Galen, be reasonable. We've done all we could. We should head back to the others and make haste for Lut Gholein. We owe it to the ones who are still alive to get them behind the safety of its walls."

"No," came the answer. "I will not give up the search until every lost person under our care is accounted for." He paused. "And…if we are indeed too late to save any of them, then I will make sure not a single bug in these light-forsaken tunnels is left alive to threaten anyone ever again!"

With that, he pushed deeper, a grim resolve written on his features. Ko'kal and Dana exchanged worried glances, but as futile as their current endeavor seemed to them, they would not forsake their companion.

Another eternity of meandering later the amazon felt compelled to speak up again.

"Do you even know where we're going? There's no telling how far these tunnels stretch. At this point I'm not sure we'll be even able to find our way back to the surface! We have to go back."

"It's simple," the paladin answered flippantly as he turned to her. "We keep going down until we can't anymore, then we go back up."

"What if there is no end? For all we know we might end up walking all the way down to the gates of Hell itself."

"Well at least we'll know to turn back then."

"You're not going to believe this, but I…I think maybe we're already there," Ko'kal announced as the two bickered.

He had moved a bit ahead and found that the tunnel opened on a large chamber, where some sort of great archway loomed dimly in the distance. His companions, who were the only light source down here, joined him and together they moved out of the tunnel and into the space within.

It was like walking into a forgotten world; the cavern was littered with the ruins of some long-buried city, a mosaic of broken pillars, derelict walls, and sand. They could now clearly see the structure at the far side: it looked like the entrance to a temple carved into the very rock, its facade guarded by monstrous statues, its colossal archway crowned by a jeweled keystone that still shone with a ruddy glow despite the passage of time.

The edifice seemed to be ancient beyond reckoning, unlike anything belonging to any culture in living memory that any of them could recall, yet it still held an air of menace, promising untold horrors to any trespassers foolish enough to breach its sanctity. Somehow it had withstood the centuries much more gracefully than its surroundings.

"If this gate truly leads to Hell, I will never let you live it down," Dana declared.

Galen offered no reply. So taken were they by the monument before their eyes that they failed to look down upon the ground they were walking on, but they were soon alerted by the sound of crunching beneath their boots.

"By the light," the paladin whispered.

Bones littered the sandy cavern floor; most were old, but some were still wet with blood and torn flesh; the growing sense of horror reached its peak when, among the charnel heap, they found the bodies of their remaining fellow travelers. Some were eviscerated, others were torn limb from limb, others yet were still being gnawed upon by a few maggots that were too busy with their meal to notice the trespassers. Galen ignored them to search for any sign of life, yet there, among the gore and horror, he spied the thing he dreaded most: the telltale blue of Warriv's attire.

He rushed forward, trying to swallow the growing lump in his throat, yet he was interrupted by a great rumbling that grew louder and louder as the ground quaked. The bones all around them rattled like some sinister laughter from beyond the grave as an enormous maggot burst from the feeding grounds. The cavern grew chill, an unnatural cold seeming to emanate from the creature itself.

In ages past the people of the desert had called it Coldworm the Burrower in their now forgotten tongue, but there were none around to remember that name. It was the product of the Vizjerei's many experiments with demonic powers designed to gain an edge over the other mage clans. It had grown fat and monstrous over the centuries, gorging itself on travelers, livestock and eventually entire communities. It had spawned countless broods, and whenever it exhausted its food in one part of the desert, it would simply burrow to another, carving itself a veritable empire beneath the sands.

In all its long years this was the first time prey had willingly ventured into its nest, and it was not about to pass up a free meal. The giant pincers came eagerly down upon Galen, seeking to bisect him. Yet where it had expected a tasty morsel, Coldworm was met only with the taste of cold steel as the paladin ducked under the bite and thrust Providence upwards into its jaw. The creature recoiled with a screech, retaliating with a glob of acid that it spat at the human. The bile ate away at Galen's brigandine, but he paid it no mind as he charged forth in a flurry of fanatic zeal to hack away at the gigantic insect.

Ko'kal and Dana were not far behind, and as the trio tore into its carapace Coldworm reared up, screeched again, then came slamming down seeking to crush all three of them with its sheer weight.

Blinded by rage and numbed by the deep chill that seeped into their limbs, the paladin and barbarian were too slow to completely clear the impact zone; only the amazon managed to jump fully out of the way of the massive insectoid body. Her eyes grew wide as she scanned the aftermath of the attack; there was no sign of either of her comrades. To compound her problems, juvenile sand maggots began rushing in from the walls of the cavern, alerted by their mother's call.

The creature turned its sights on her, its mandibles unfolding hungrily as they prepared to clasp her in their deadly embrace. But before it could strike there was a stirring from beneath and to its unending surprise, Coldworm's upper length was slowly lifted from the ground; the two humans it thought it had turned to paste appeared from beneath wreathed in a golden light, pushing it upwards in a display of unbelievable strength.

They were both bleeding yet alive; the force of the impact had been tremendous, but thankfully, the sand and bones below them had enough give to blunt it a little. With a concerted cry, the two threw off the overgrown insect to the side, where it rolled onto its back, struggling to right itself.

Whilst Ko'kal's hands were protected by the Smith's gauntlets, Galen's hands were frostbitten due to the chill that radiated from its carapace. Nevertheless, they both picked up their weapons and cut into the creature with renewed vigor as Dana took on the broodlings with her flaming glaive. Each wound inflicted on Coldworm produced splashes of acid that corroded their armor and burned their exposed skin, but they continued hewing heedlessly, and soon the monstrosity's death rattle echoed throughout the cavern.

This did not stop Galen from his single-minded sword work; he slashed and stabbed and hacked without reprieve.

"Friend Galen, I think the beast is dead," the northman called out, but the knight would not snap out of his frenzy.

The dying creature's body suddenly began bloating in grotesque ways, the ancient magics that had been trapped within for centuries finally unraveling. Acting on instinct, Ko'kal grabbed his ally by the waist and dragged him away despite his protests. The gargantuan insectoid corpse exploded in a tremendous icy blast that showered the entire cavern with its caustic blood.

Dana was thrown off her feet as she was finishing off the last maggots, her body slamming into a nearby crumbling wall. It took her a while to shake off the dizziness and find her feet again. She stumbled her way to where she had last seen her companions. It didn't take long to locate them; they were covered in a thin sheen of frost and acid, the former thankfully helping to offset the bite of the latter. The barbarian groaned, but there was no sign of life from Galen.

Reaching for the satchel on her belt, she grabbed a healing potion she always kept for emergencies, yet found it had broken underneath her; She grabbed the side of the paladin's face that wasn't partially burned, tapping him gently to wake him up. Meanwhile Ko'kal was sitting up painfully, his face a mask of suppressed pain.

"Ha!" he exclaimed with forced bravado, "that barely stung. This corrosion is nothing compared to Andariel's."

"Galen's isn't responding," she replied with urgency, ignoring his bluster. "Do you have a potion?"

"No, but I can make one."

With that, he stumbled his way to the maggots she had slain, gritting his teeth with every step. He began rummaging through their remains, ripping out organs and viscera. Confused at his actions, the amazon shifted her focus back to the paladin in her arms. His breath was shallow, and her attempts to revive him were fruitless. Her mind raced to find a way to help him, calculating how long it would take her to race topside and back, looking around for anything that could help. Perhaps the temple still held some curative?

She was interrupted in her train of thought by the barbarian, who had returned with his canteen in hand.

"Make him drink this," he said as he offered it to her.

"What is it?" she asked incredulously.

"You don't want to know. But trust me, it will work. Nothing in the wilds goes to waste; my mother taught me to scavenge everything I would ever need from the creatures of the land. Even these unnatural ones can be put to good use. Life feeds life."

Dana brought the tincture to her nose; her nostrils were assaulted by an acrid smell that threatened to make her retch, yet she was no stranger to the fact that bitter medicine was often the best. Had she not herself been taught to make an antidote from the very creatures that produced the venom?

Desperate for any remedy, she lifted Galen's head and poured the tincture down his throat. Silence followed, a silence that seemed to stretch forever in her mind; yet before long, the young man in her care sputtered, coughing weakly to get rid of the bitter draught he had been made to swallow. The healing it had provided was not potent, but it had been enough to bring him back to consciousness, aided in no small part by the urge to retch.

"See? Mother knows best," Ko'kal declared proudly.

The familiar white aura enveloped them all as the paladin summoned his healing powers, slowly cleansing and restoring their bodies. Yet he made no move to rip himself away from the amazon's embrace.

"You keep finding ways to end up in my arms, don't you? One would start to think you were doing it on purpose," she teased.

He offered no answer, his eyes fixed on the ground in a look of grief and shame, tears forming at the corners.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"The missing folk…I saw their bodies. Warriv was among them."

She had expected it, but the news came as a blow nonetheless. The trio hung their heads in defeat.

"I…I'm sorry, Galen."

"I should've listened to you. I risked our lives for nothing. I am not fit to protect anyone."

She placed her hand on his cheek, forcing him to look at her.

"You have led us through fire and death to triumph over the forces of Hell itself. We will follow you to whatever end."

He pondered her words, his expression softening somewhat, though sorrow was still etched upon it. He slowly rose to his feet.

"Come," she enjoined. "There are still folks waiting for us to get them safely home."

He nodded, but headed for the opposite direction than the tunnels; he made his way back to the feeding ground, trying to locate Warriv's body in the carnage. He wanted to bring Razan his uncle's medallion as a keepsake.

"What do you think lies within that temple?" the barbarian wondered aloud.

"Only one way to find out," Dana replied.

They made their way inside under the gaze of the figures guarding the entrance, a little unnerved but feeling confident that they had already seen the worst this place had to throw at them. The interior was somehow still vibrantly decorated, its walls adorned with awe-inspiring scenes from history or legend that neither could recognize. At the far end of the fane stood an altar, upon which lay a golden chest that seemed to produce a light of its own. In fact, to call it a chest was to belittle it; it looked more like an ornate reliquary, and the amazon could sense the strong scent of magic emanating from it.

"This must be what drew that creature to make its nest here."

"Think you can open it?" Ko'kal asked. "You rogues are good at that sort of thing."

"The Askari do not have the skill of our sisters of the Sightless Eye," Dana protested, "but I've learned to handle a lockpick well enough."

With that she set to work, but it soon became apparent to her that she was woefully unfit for the task.

"I've never seen a lock such as this," she announced in defeat.

The barbarian shrugged and took out his studded war mace, smashing it onto the lock with all his might.

The lock remained intact, the clang echoing mockingly against the walls.

"There's magic at work here," the amazon insisted. "We won't be able to open it by any means that we here possess."

Ko'kal again shrugged and simply lifted the chest off the altar, carrying it on his shoulder. Dana flinched, expecting some hidden mechanism to activate a trap, but nothing happened.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she decided against berating the northman for his carelessness, and together they made their way back to the paladin.

The latter had been frustrated in his search. There was too much gore and acid everywhere to conduct a proper search; it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, if the haystack was on fire. No bodies to bury, no token to bring back, nothing; he smashed his fist on a random chunk of innards, furious at the powerlessness he felt.

He stood back up and led the way out of the cavern. He couldn't wait to leave this accursed place.


Their return to the caravan had been a somber affair. Everyone understood by their countenance the fate of those who had been dragged below. Galen had personally delivered the news to Razan, though he had been unable to look the lad in the eye. The latter was inconsolable, hiding inside the wagon where he had taken refuge. Deckard Cain stayed with him, attempting to offer soothing words, then his mere presence when that failed. The boy's sobs could be heard throughout the night, a constant reminder to the paladin of his failure.

The next day was just as dour, their yet further depleted numbers trudging along the desert with grim determination. They had slept little, having resolved to reach Lut Gholein in as little time as possible. Carrion birds circled overhead, and Dana caught glimpses of a pack of small, predatory creatures stalking the caravan among the dunes, just out of sight. She recognized them as leapers, who were known to attack the occasional isolated traveler but would usually steer clear of large groups of humans; it seemed the demonic taint that was spreading across the land was emboldening them, though, like the vultures above, they did not dare to outright attack their contingent. Likely, they were waiting for a straggler to fall behind, and the amazon made sure everyone kept pace with the van.

The day passed by uneventfully, and as they huddled around the campfire for what could be the last time, hope began to stir among them again. Heaven willing, they would reach the city on the morrow, though there were still murmurs of another attack. What if there was an ambush waiting for them? What if the city itself had fallen?

Still, spirits were on the rise, and the mood around camp improved enough that the sound of discussion, even laughter was heard. The paladin, on the other hand, was still just as despondent, and Dana struggled to find a way to ease his heart. She glanced worriedly at him as he stared gloomily into the fire while the others chatted.

"Still no luck with the chest?" Ko'kal was asking Talia.

"A heavy enchantment lies upon that lock," came the reply. "I am of the Zann-Esu, not the Ennead; such magics are too subtle for me."

"The magical prodigy, conceding her lack of prowess?" Cyrus wondered snarkily. "I never thought I'd see the day."

"I am a powerful elementalist; I can conjure lightning and create firestorms. I don't concern myself with such tedious spellcraft as glorified locksmithing or turning metals into more expensive metals."

"Why haven't you unlocked it if you're so smart?" the barbarian asked the necromancer.

"I'm sorry I couldn't find time for such pursuits in between studying the secrets of life and death," the latter retorted with the same haughtiness as the sorceress.

"So you're both useless," Ko'kal decided with a chuckle.

As the two mages protested the northman's verdict, the amazon sidled up to Galen.

"You've barely spoken a word since yesterday," she remarked.

The paladin sighed and lifted his eyes towards the night sky.

"What are we doing, Dana?" he asked, and the question caught her off-guard, unsure of his meaning. "What in Heaven's name makes us think we can take on this task? That we can defeat a Prime Evil and save all of Sanctuary? We can't even save the people in our care."

"Galen, their deaths were not of your making."

"Paige. Warriv. The rogues who fell in Eastguard, the people who died on this journey. So many are dead because of us. Because they followed us to certain doom."

The memory of Paige stung her, but she quickly found her tongue.

"Hush," she berated. "Warriv was a good man; he knew the risks. As did Lydia and Paige. As did all the others. They chose to bravely stand in the face of evil. Do not sully their sacrifice by robbing them of their agency."

"But what if we're not strong enough? What if we fail and everything we hold dear comes to ruin? What if all their sacrifices were in vain?"

His voice quivered at that last question.

"Then we will die in the defense of the world we love, fighting side by side with the people we love," she replied as she placed her arm around his shoulders.

His eyes found hers, and something unspoken passed between them. As long as he was at her side, there was nothing he couldn't face. He leaned into her, silently praying for those who had fallen.

"You're right," he eventually said, looking back up at the stars, the fire in his eyes rekindled. "It is not for us to decide the fate of others. All we can do is honor their courage by facing our own. I vow before Heaven that at the fateful hour, I will not be found wanting."


Another brief night of slumber passed before the caravan set off again, desperate to finally reach their destination. You could almost taste the anticipation, tired limbs moving frantically on as though propelled by some last reserve of strength.

The sun was already high in the sky when something in the air shifted. Dana and Galen, who were in the van, were the first to feel it. It was like a call, a deep familiar stirring that suddenly filled what was hollow but a moment before. They exchanged a look of shared recognition, wide-eyed smiles creeping on their faces. The amazon offered him her hand to get on her steed behind her, and together they rode ahead.

The rumor grew into a certainty. The salty air, the cool wind, the sound of waves: they had both grown up with it and would recognize it anywhere. As they crested a final dune, their eyes were suddenly greeted by the vast blue expanse of the Twin Seas, glittering in the noon sun. The far-off cry of seagulls was like a homecoming song in the air, and the two dismounted to take it all in, embracing each other while laughing like children, tears of joy and grief and exhaustion mingling with the sand on their faces. The rest of the caravan, hearing the excited commotion, rushed forward to join them.

Along the shore, at the end of the Rakkisroad's winding path, the Jewel of the Desert shone promisingly.