Through the sea of sand (Open)

[Alex Silver]

Sorry it took me so long to reply, real life hit me like a semi-truck but I'm back now.

Alex gave a polite wave good bye to Erik as the man seemed to be leaving for good now and turned his attention to the kid who was profusely thanking him for being willing to stick around. He very much appreciated the sentiment of course, after all; he too agreed that two heads would be better than one in this situation and frankly he would have hated to stick around for too long only to realize that he had no idea what he was doing. He would wait until Sebastian was done conjuring himself a vehicle before getting to retort however, as he was unwilling to break the young man’s focus. Besides, it was not like he had anything better to do than to wait on him for now. Except, perhaps, indulge in his cigar. He took a long drag of the thing which allowed a blue cloud of thing, transparent smoke to exude from it before blowing it away with a stream of white smoke which was pushed out from his lips. The faint smell of nicotine was now starting to take the air, but in this heat it would not be tainting their surroundings for long. After all, hot hair had a way of going up and out of reach. In a way, this was perhaps the best place to smoke while ensuring you don’t bother anyone. It was refreshing, if nothing else.

As he watched the boy’s vehicle slowly come to physical form he could not help but remind himself of the days he spent with the younger members of his group teaching them how to use the arcane forces. Between him and his friend Raven, he was very obviously the more talented of the two at that much. Raven did outclass him when it came to skill with a weapon however and – at this moment, within a world where the arcane seemed to have no grasp – he kind of wished things had been the other way around. It would have certainly felt more confident about the whole endeavor. That said, using the young ones of the group as a margin, Sebastian appeared to be quite talented himself. In fact, the vehicle he had created appeared larger and more complex than his own and the time they’d taken to create them was not much different. Then again, he had no idea if this was a good measure of actual magical skill… perhaps everyone was equally talented when omnilium was the topic of conversation. What would matter, then, would be just how much omnilium you happen to have in your possession… he speculated about this when the boy appeared done and turned to him.

“It’s no problem at all Sebastian. If anything, I am just as thankful to you as you are to me. I don’t know what it is about this world but I am a lot weaker than I was back where I came from.” He admitted, a bit discouraged by the fact of the matter. “I guess it’s to normalize people, perhaps? I’m not sure how this world has affected others… do you feel any different, personally?” He inquired.

He then turned his attention to the vehicle the young man had constructed and offered him to join along on, then to his motorcycle. The Weeping Nellie seemed like a tough little beast that would be more than capable of navigating the terrain here and it did have more than enough room for the both of them, but he would have to decline. “Thanks for the offer, but no. I have to decline; if we both ride on your vehicle I’ll have to dismiss my own and – if I do that – I’ll have to spend another five minutes recollecting my omnilium like Erik did earlier. It would be a bit of a waste of our time…” He uttered, nodding to himself as he hopped onto the motorcycle, straddling it and crossing one leg over the other so that his foot was directly above his opposite knee. “Besides, Erik mentioned that there are bandits around here and… I think we might be less likely to attack if they think there’s more of us than there actually are. Wouldn’t you agree?” Alex was not about to lie, he had just thought of this strategically aspect a mere moment ago, but there was some truth to it. “Well, I may be overthinking it, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, right?” With that, he revved the motor and approached the young man’s vehicle with his own, inspecting it. It was an interesting device and – while structurally sound – he had not seen any like it in his world. "Interesting..."