Sand under stars

[The Humble Sage]

The Sage landed in coarse grass, a glaring sun beating down on him from a stark blue sky. He took a moment to adjust to the rapid changes in climate, already regretting the woolen robe he had summoned back in the Syntech labs. He could see the skyline of a small city not too far away, which should be Carrefore. The Sage took a few moments to summon a more appropriate set of clothes. He stored away the robe, instead donning a hooded poncho with a muted blue color, over a set of sturdy brown clothes. This would not be a time for fancy looks and charm. He was going back into Imperial territory.

The now much more muted Sage made his way through the savannah grass, the dry plants rustling as he brushed past them. After the pomp of Karl’s facility, the city of Carrefore was a staunch reminder of the variety of lifestyles the Omniverse supported. The Sage moved quickly past a pair of imperial guards, though they were thankfully distracted by a game of sabaac and did not think much of the stranger. He moved through the crowded streets of Carrefore with a quiet speed, he had been a fool to go to Coasta del Sol with his imperial bounty, an inexperienced fool. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake for a second time. He would do his business discreetly and be on his way before imperial law enforcement was any the wiser.

The Sage made his way to Rick’s Café American. Evven during the early afternoon the sounds of carousing were audible from the street outside. Rick’s Café was never truly closed, and the imperial forces had learned just to leave it alone. The mark of a truly successful business.

The Sage entered, moving through the crowd swarming what he guessed was a drinking contest and made his way to the bar. The barkeep was a plump woman who could likely have used a touch less makeup, but she regarded him with a practiced eye that put the Sage instinctively on guard.

“You want a drink traveler?” she asked, turning towards the wall behind her.

“Something light, I have much to do before the end of the day.” He replied taking a seat. “Do you know of any troupes on their way to the Town with No Name? Any caravans that could use an extra hand?” He placed his payment, a larger amount than would be expected for the drink that was slid back his way.

The lady scooped up the money without missing a beat, and moved down the bar without saying a word. The Sage sipped his drink and glanced at his surroundings. There were a large variety of patrons in the place, even given the time of day. A trio of black leathered road warriors seemed to be eyeing him from their table. The Sage raised his mug in greetings, acting furtive would be the best way to encourage their curiosity.  The Sage continued to scan the rest of the room, but no one else he could see was paying him any attention. They seemed far too interested in the drinking game. Two Gamorreans were going head to head while a troll he could only assume had deserted Zul-Jinn’s war was taking bets from the cheering crowd. The Barkeep had gone into the back of the building, and that was something the Sage wasn’t particularly keen on. He couldn’t do anything about it, however, so he took another gulp of the flat liquid and mulled over his interactions during Dante’s Abyss.

Tearen Wover’s warning had apparently been hushed up by Karl Jak, or perhaps his reputation had led some to doubt the veracity of his words? At any rate, the Omniverse at large seemed not to be concerned with the situation, though his judgement of Tearen had seemed genuinely unsettled during his depiction of the tale. This led to one of two possible outcomes. Either Wover was overestimating the threat Diablo actually posed, or there was more going on than the Sage was aware of. Tearen had said that Diablo’s agents could leave the Underverse freely, if that was the case, they would be free to infiltrate every facet of the other factions relatively unimpeded. The Sage glanced back at the road warriors out of the corner of his eye. They had not lost their curiosity. Still watching him with an air of easy confidence. Wover had made the announcement to the Omniverse at large, and the Sage had been confirmed to have spoken with him. Had he made himself a target to Diablo’s agents in the process?

The Woman stepped out of the backroom suddenly, and passed by the Sage as she made her way to the end of the bar. He set his drink down, palming the leaflet of paper she had quickly placed as she went. Without a word he turned and left the Café. Not in a hurry, but he had gotten what he came for. Exiting back into the heat. He opened the paper. As he expected the Barkeep had written a name and directions.

Eckward Whistler? Let’s see how this goes… The Sage pocketed the note, and made his way through the crowded streets of Carrefore.

[The Humble Sage]

The Sage stepped into the outfitters with a steadily increasing confidence. It was refreshing to be in a place where he was not being actively hunted or interrogated. He was still wanted by the empire, but the occasional bounty hunter was entirely different from the Imperial forces that seemed to be everywhere in the Vasty Deep. The Sage crossed the room to the counter, though there didn’t appear to be anyone in the room.
 
The Sage glanced around at the items on sale, I had no idea there were so many variations of bear trap. Nor do I expect one should find bears in a desert… He turned around at the approaching trumping of the shop owner. The Sage raised an eyebrow as he took in the shop keeper’s appearance. He had expected a solidly built individual, one less confident would not leave the front of their store unguarded, but this man’s shoulders were massive. The depth of his footfall seemed out of sync with his weight as well, as if he were even heavier than the massive frame suggested. The sparse red hair and squared jaw rounded out an individual that the Sage was certain rarely found life as complicated as he did himself.
 
“Yes?” the man asked, his voice thudded like rocks dropping to the ground. No flow, no meter, straight and to the point. How absolutely boring.

“Eckward?” The Sage asked, surely this couldn’t be the man he had asked after, could it? The thick-faced store owner did not reply, but turned and marched back into the back room.
 
There was more thudding as he spoke, then a burst of higher pitches from more than one responder. Whoever he had been talking to certainly didn’t share his tone. A short and hooded figure came bustling out of the backroom, the large man in toe. Two glowing yellow eyes shown from the shrowded hood, and the being began to chatter in rapid language that the Sage could not decipher. Blasted Omni, translating only the things you feel like. Sage thought with some annoyance as he looked at the larger man with his best appearance of amiable confusion. The short figure caught on before the larger man, and directed another clipped burst of speech at the mountain of human.
 
“This is Eckward.” The pauses between the man’s sentences grated on the Sage’s impatience, “What business brings you?” Another pause during which the man gestured at the surroundings. “You want to buy something?” The honest greed in the man’s eyes as he asked the last question struck the Sage, but he shook his head.
 
“I have no need for traps, good traders, Though I do wonder what pests that size one needs to ensnare out here.” The Sage replied, immediately the hooded trader shot off a quick burst, and in a moment the man answered.
 
“Jawas.” The smaller being seemed to find this uproariously funny, though the Sage had no idea what the creatures were, “They steal all the things.” Came the monotonous plodding voice. If the man had found the humor anywhere near as funny as its speaker he was good at hiding it.
 
“I see...” the Sage said hesitantly, moving on before the small creature realized that he had missed the joke, “I have been told you plan an expedition to the town with no name. I seek the same destination, and would trade my skills as a scribe in exchange for passage.”
 
The hooded figure actually seemed to consider this proposal for a time, before turning to his translator once again. This response was carefully worded, The Sage suspected he was trying to ensure there would be no mistranslations.
 
“Why does a seller of machinery” he paused again, and the Sage suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, “need a scribe?”
 
Aside from the chance for a stimulating conversation during the trip? he thought, but that argument would be imprudent.

“I can balance your records, take stock of your inventory, find any counterfeits that might find their way into your supply…” he trailed off, “The point is, I can handle all of the tedious parts of managing the trip and the finances, and let you focus on selling your product.” He was absolutely certain that Eckward would have to do his own transactions. He wondered idly whether he did them through the mountain man or not. Could most people here understand Eckward’s speech?
 
The hooded creature continued to mull over the Sage’s proposal, muttering to himself in the chittering language that the Sage continued to puzzle over. He thought he could detect a certain rhythm to much of the speech, maybe it was not as complicated as he had first thought…
The small merchant barked another question towards his translator, and the Sage refocused his attention.
 
“Just take him along.” Came a new voice, and the Sage looked again at the door to the back room. He was surprised to see the same pink-haired gnome or halfling that had been working in Syntech upon his awakening.
 
“This guy’s a prime. Even if you’ve already got a bodyguard, this will virtually ensure we don’t get robbed during the trip.” Her tone was non-chalant, but the way her eyes darted towards the expressions of the three of them shattered that illusion. She caught his gaze and winked at him. Troubling…
 
The pink-haired halfpint seemed to convince Eckward, as the hooded merchant broke off his questions and instead motioned, hand raised and spinning in a corralling motion. The large man nodded and moved towards the back room. Eckward followed, already rattling off what the Sage could only assume were orders. The pink hair shrugged and followed, leaving only the Sage remaining in the outer room.
 
He groaned inwardly and pinched the bridge of his nose. Perhaps he should have just made the trip solo.

[The Humble Sage]

The pair of covered wagons trundled out of Carrefore at dawn. The Sage was intrigued by the design, a strange energy bound the second cart to the first in the manner of a rope, but the first wagon itself drove without beast to carry it. A strange mechanical device instead turned the wheels, operated by a massive wheel that the large man, whom the Sage had learned responded to Odem, operated with a pair of rotating pedals.

Eckward sat at the front of the makeshift caravan with Odem, leaving the Sage with the strange pink-haired sprite who he was becoming increasingly wary of. She claimed her name was viper, as blatant an alias as one could ask for. She sat next to him polishing a boot. Clearly not intended for use in this verse… the only place he could think would degrade footwear faster than these sands would have to be the Pale Moors.

“Why are you here?” he asked suddenly. There was no point to beating around the bush he supposed. The small one gave him an infuriatingly self-satisfied grin as she responded.

“You think Karl Jak keeps us around all year?” The Sage considered, realizing he had never thought about it, “Syntech is seasonal work at best, pal. Not even that. It pays well, especially if you can get in a good word with some of the sponsors for employment afterwards.” She tossed the boot into the wagon and stretched, before leaning back against the back of the seat, with her hands behind her head.
“Obviously I wasn’t able to do that this year. So here I am.” She shrugged and closed her eyes, probably planning to go to sleep. Or at least pretending to so the Sage would stop asking questions.

It was a perfectly reasonable explanation for her being here. And the Sage found it frustratingly suspicious because of that. The gnomeling seemed entirely too nonchalant about the fact that they had met twice in such a short amount of time. The Omniverse did not play in coincidences. Either Omni himself had decided to meddle, or the pink-haired migrant was working for someone.

Not for the first time, the Sage’s thoughts turned to Diablo. He believed Tearen’s story, that the lord of demons was not trapped in the underverse, as they had all believed. Instead he seemed to be using the place as a sort of defensive position. He controlled the exits of the world  and so little was truly known about the place, or to what extent Diablo’s power had grown there. The Tearen had certainly gained in power from his time in the place, and the only other documented prime had been secreted away by the empire shortly after her return. By all accounts she had not fared well, but the speed with which she was back in the armed forces implied a similar strength. If simply the time it took to get out of the underverse created such powerful primes, what was happening to the ones who decided to stay?

The Sage sat in thought as the morning sun drifted lazily towards noon, but he did not feel like he was getting anywhere. There were too many variables. No way of knowing what his next move should be with the information he had. He rubbed his temples in frustration, glaring up at the blazing fire in the sky. It beat down with an intensity which the Sage had not experienced during his time in the Deep. Thankful for the muted clothing the Sage turned to Eckward’s ledgers. If thought would not quite his mind, then work would have to suffice.

Thankfully, Omni had allowed that the words in the ledger were more intelligible than the one’s the hooded being spoke. The Sage spent the next few hours parsing the merchant’s strange manners of noting his business. The Pink-haired gnomeling woke up during his work, and moved to the back of the wagon. The Sage had decided not to further question her, instead acting as though his curiosity had been sated. It would be better to look the fool and watch in secret than to blatantly challenge every action she took based on a hunch. However sure he was that she was not who she claimed to be.

They ended up setting camp in along the sheltered side of a cliff. The Sage had seen barely any sign of life during the entire day’s trek, and he was still debating whether the shriveled thorn bushes he had seen even counted as alive anymore. Now however the retreat of the great burning circle, and the arrival of the moon, had brought renewed variance to the otherwise stagnant landscape. The Sage idly watched a large beetle, nearly the size of his hand, as it wandered about the edge of the campsite, pursing whatever instincts it possessed. In the distance, a coyote howled, an answering trio sounded shortly thereafter. They weren’t far away.

The four travelers were sitting around a fire. Eckward had allotted some space for firewood, as it would help to ward off any beasts that came looking for a meal. It also clearly marked their location for banditry, but the road between Carrefore and the Town With No Name, was well charted enough that a bandit wouldn’t need to seek out the caravan. They could sit back, knowing the route would lead the target straight to them. His companions seemed unconcerned about the coyotes, although Viper was supposedly on guard first, she was sitting at the fire with the rest of them. Eckward was muttering to himself while fiddling with a stringed instrument the Sage was unfamiliar with. Odem watched the fire with a rapt expression, blinking only infrequently, face set but eyes glittering.

The Sage eventually put away his work on the ledgers. They were one third of the way through their journey, and he doubted he would have trouble finishing the work before their arrival. Eckward was clearly a shrewd businessman, and for the most part, the ledgers were already in order. The occasional entry was in another hand, which the Sage suspected was Odem’s from its thickness, but the thing was simple enough to decode after he had figured out the method. Eckward’s records seemed less concerned with the money involved with his transactions, and more with the status of the goods being traded. He recorded conditions of the goods, the time it took using various routes, many things the Sage was not accustomed to seeing on a merchant’s ledger. Thankfully the thing was able to do math well enough, or the job might have been far more difficult.

The Sage pulled himself inside of his bedroll, at least the hard packed sand had some small give to it. He drifted off to sleep, more at ease here in the wilderness than he had been for some time.

He was awoken roughly by a slap across the face from a child-sized hand. The Sage struggled up into a sitting position, it wasn’t his turn at watch already was it? Viper grabbed and shook him once or twice.

“Yo! Get up old man! We’ve got to MOVE!” she barked with an urgency that broke through the Sage’s sleep-induced haze.

“bandits?” he asked, focusing enough to get his feet under him.

“Worse.” She said, pointing towards a large dark shape in the distance. It was following their trail with a drifting steady pace, a dark blur in the midnight lighting.
“Tusken Raiders.”

[The Humble Sage]

The Sage sat with Eckward and Viper in the back of one of the wagons while Odem steered their mechanical caravan. They were staring at a map of the Dunes, trying to decipher how their pursuers could have gotten so close to Carrefore without imperial encounters.

“We can’t have lost the route to the Town With No Name, can we?” the Sage asked, “The map seems to say it would take little more than a day’s journey. Yet here we have had our rest so rudely interrupted after a full day’s toil.”

Eckward shook his head dismissively, mumbling to himself in the language the Sage still didn’t really understand. Viper gave a sort of patronizing half-smile as she explained.

“Most of the Endless Dunes are, well, exactly that. Dunes. Too much sand in the motors of these hovercarts can break them down, so we’ve had to take this longer route here.” She traced a more arcing path, towards a darker portion of the map. “More rocks and hard dirt, lets the engines stay on.”

Eckward smacked a finger at the area behind them. A high intensity burst of the strange speech caused both the Sage and Viper to jump before Eckward stormed back to sit beside Odem. The Sage looked at Viper in confusion, and the gnomeling shrugged.

“He says he knows which of those Imperial watchposts they must have snuck past, and he plans to get them all court-martialed once he gets back to Carrefore.”

“He doesn’t seem too concerned about being hunted. The Tusken are travelling single-file, we have no way of knowing how many are after us.” The Sage said, as he and viper moved to the back of the caravan, watching the plodding march of the Banthas behind them. Viper shrugged.

“They’re unlikely to catch us before we make it to the Town at the rate their going. We should be fine as long as we keep moving.” She settled into as comfortable a position as she could amidst the cramped boxes of the wagon. “They were probably hoping to catch us unawares, and now they’re just putting in a good showing before giving up and looking for something easier to catch.”

The Sage watched the dark shape behind them pensively, a gnawing fear refusing to release him to slumber. Putting in a good show? Uncertainly he moved back to the map.  He grabbed the little disk that acted as a lantern wincing slightly at its unexpected heat before placing it nearer the map. Their route wound through canyons towards the Town with No Name, but in order to get out of the labyrinth of fissues, they would need to go through a single pass. If they missed it they would have to detour by almost a week to get to the next pass out, and the dunes Eckward had so tried to avoid would lay between them and their destination.

They aren’t trying to catch us, The Sage realized with growing alarm, They’re trying to herd us into a trap. It was an old bandit stratagem, one that he had both used and been taken by in the past. It normally worked best in more isolated locales, but he was convinced now that he saw the routes more clearly. It was too good an ambush spot, but not heavily trafficked enough to be on the Empire’s radar. Now he just had to convince the others.

The Sage started to head towards Viper, then realized that he had forgotten not to trust her. Shaking his head a little, he made his way to the front of the hovercarts, where Eckward and Odem rode together in silence.

“I’ve figured out the raider’s intentions. They mean to ambush us ahead, with reinforcements to cut off any retreat. Do you have any sort of quicker transportation I can use to scout ahead and find their position?”

Eckward’s surprised response was predictably unintelligible and so the Sage looked at Odem, who kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead, even as he began to slowly translate his boss’s speech.

“How do… you… know that… they are…” he monotoned, and the Sage’s urgency caused him to cut the man off before the rest of the question was even formed.

“Because they would be utterly stupid otherwise. Look, I’m going to summon a mount for myself, and ride ahead, travel as slowly as the pursuers will let you. They are herding us like sheep to a butchery, and I have no intention of walking in blindly.”

The Sage didn’t even wait for a reply, moving back to seclusion of the wagon. He focused, the rainbow hued orb of Omnilium forming in his hands. It was bigger than ever, and its sheer power stunned the Sage for a brief instant, before he refocused on his task. Just when have I gotten this strong? He wondered as he focused on the beast he needed. Stocky, almost more mule than horse. Sturdy legs and a strong gait. Not skittish or flighty, a beast with a good head on its shoulders.

Eventually there was a nickering from outside the caravan, and the Sage broke his reverie, the rainbow orb dissolving back into nothing. The Sage hopped off of the hovercart, jogging over towards the minorly confused mare that stood a short distance away. Murmuring comforting words to the newly created beast, the Sage climbed atop the saddle. He pranced forward adjusting to the gait of the beast, then nudged her forward into a strong gait, racing ahead of the caravan into the night.

[The Humble Sage]

The mottled wrappings the Sage wore blew slightly in the early morning wind as he sat crouched on an outcropping of rock at the top of the canyon walls. There were two of the tusken below him, laying on their stomachs, lower down the cliff face, rifles nearby. Eckward seemed not to have understood the intent of his rambling, or at least wasn’t persuaded to put his caravan significantly behind schedule. The Sage could see the caravan humming along the path, cloaked as it was in the dawn shadows of the canyons. He would need to act quickly before the trap was sprung.

The Sage gripped his walking stick tightly and slipped his way down towards the two perched snipers. It was time to meet a tusken.

“Morning, gentlemen! See anything worth the hunt?” he called out, the would-be ambushers whirling in surprise. The Sage noted their bandaged faces and strange metal masks, Life is not kind to these poor creatures, is it…

“You wouldn’t happen to be intending to rob that caravan…” The Sage began, although his bantering was cut off by one of the bandits, who stood up, rifle raised above his head, and uttered a stuttering guttural cry. The Sage instinctively started to assess the battleground. there was no mistaking the intent behind that cry, and it would likely have alerted the others too. He would have to be quick.

The first attack came from the crouched Tusken, the musket firing wildly, the aim off-center enough for the Sage to dodge with relative ease. The standing raider closed the twenty odd feet between them with surprising speed, and a low sweep up towards his jaw caught the Sage off-guard, sending him reeling backwards in a daze. The aging scholar-turned-explorer reoriented himself, settling into a stance. There is power, but little control. He thought, fingers thrumming as he gripped the dueling cane with both hands. I should not lose this fight.

We a swift exhale, the Sage re-closed with the nearer of the two tusken, using the window offered by the sniper’s need to reload. If he could down this foe in the interim, then he would erase their biggest advantage He rained several blows down on his surprised foe, the raider staggering and ineffectively swiping at his feints as the Sage overpowered him with strike after strike. The tusken floundered, but stubbornly weathered the barrage.

The clicking sound from behind him warned him that the second tusken would soon become a factor again. The sage switched stances, from punishing double-handed blows to lighter strikes dancing around his foe, doing everything in his power to keep the sniper unsure of the shot he was taking.

The Sage reached out with his limited magic, taking hold of the sniper’s rifle, but did not burden the weapon yet, lest his foe realize the trap. The Sage darted around to his left, placing the sniper behind the one he was still fighting, then telegraphed his next move. Crouching down unnecessarily far, the Sage leapt in the air, summersaulting over the nearer raider. The sniper read his movements and was ready for the jump, rifle up and about to fire. At the precise instant the tusken pulled the trigger, the Sage yanked down hard on the end of the rifle. The shot rang out, and the Sage had a moment of grim satisfaction as he heard it thud into the raider below him.

The Sage landed in a crouch, quickly closing the distance to the sniper. There would probably be too many others for him to prevent the ambush at this rate, His only hope would be to break their nerve. A wisp of flame trailing from one finger, the Sage rushed the sniper, batting aside his foe’s weapon and forcing him back towards the edge of the cliff. The Sage willed the flame larger, feeling the power within him fading even as his hand blossomed with the blaze.

“This may seem cruel, but I have not the time for civility.” The Sage muttered, lighting the cloth that enshrouded his foe on fire with his flaming hand. The tusken shrieked in surprise, the dry cloth catching flame with a sickening speed. The Sage grimaced, before leaping up to deliver a drop kick that sent the flame-wreathed raider wailing and tumbling down the cliffside.

The Sage got back to his feet, breathing hard. He wouldn’t be able to get to a fight down there fast enough to help if the tusken decided to attack anyway. he had warned the caravan of the ambush, but would it actually help anything? As if in answer to his concerns, a trail of smoke arched from the caravan’s second wagon, depositing a metal case amidst the tuskens on the opposite side of the canyon, seconds later a sickly pink cloud erupted from the impact, enveloping the area in an opaque haze. Tusken screams rang out but turned to gargles and were lost in the haze.

The Sage tore his eyes away from the horror across the canyon and glanced back at the caravan in time to see another canister arcing towards his side of the cliff. Without the time to consider his options he leapt, clearing the edge of the cliff side and began falling towards the canyon floor. A hissing of gas from behind him confirmed his choice of immediate action, but the looming ground approached with alarming speed and no solution surfaced in his brain. In retrospect, he thought as the rocky floor rushed towards him. It’s usually good to signal your own position on the battlefield.

The aging scholar smashed into the unrelenting stone.