Deus Necros

“Ah…” Misty couldn’t help but frown when she realized what Ludwig spoke of.

Morde’Xander alone was a mighty foe that tore through space with strength alone, what would the other two be capable of she wondered. The dunes looked suddenly like the backs of sleeping beasts to her, and she did not like the thought. She tightened her scarf a fraction. The mere thought of facing two world ending disasters who might possibly be working hand in hand was enough to bring an unwanted chill in a very warm place.

“Well, thanks to you I grew closer to lady Titania and got to spend more time with her venturing through the world, until recently.” Her grin came back at the memory of road-dust and strong tea and Titania’s rare laugh, then thinned.

“What happened?” Ludwig asked. He watched the line of her eyes as she scanned the horizon. Habit, at least.

“The hero happened. That bastard got himself in trouble and asked for reinforcement, and since lady Titania left a couple days ago, we haven’t received any news. She didn’t let me follow her.” The last sentence carried more bite than complaint. Being left behind chafed more than sand.

“And you’re coming with me? Wouldn’t that piss her off?” Ludwig asked. He let the question sit with the heat. The wind nudged a line of grains along like a ripple on a pond.

“I’m worried, also,” she grinned as she looked at Ludwig, “I’m with the man who beat down an Usurper, so I’m pretty safe.” This time the mischief was a curtain she pulled aside to set down something true. The suitcase shifted; she adjusted. The grin stayed.

“You really know how to play to your strengths,” Ludwig said, “But just because I’m here doesn’t mean you need to be relaxed,” Ludwig said. He scanned the sand for the small wrong lines that mean burrow, for the soft lurch that means something too large moving underfoot.

“I know, I’m paying a lot of attention even whil– Ack” The last sound broke in her throat as his hand closed the back of her collar and pulled.

Ludwig immediately yanked her back toward him from the scruff of her neck.

Her heels lifted, the suitcase dipped, her scarf snapped once in the startled air. His arm felt the weight of her and the case and ignored both.

Before her foot had even landed on the sand, a giant worm like creature tore through the now empty space, clutching two pincer like fangs that grabbed nothing but sand in its jaws. The sand belched upward in a pale fountain. The mouth was a pale oval lined with raw flesh, the pincers slick and rasped from use. Grains poured off its hide in a quick, hissing rain. Its breath smelled of rot kept in a warm jar.

The worm’s exterior was like that of a naked mole, bare skin and soft, and the smell only got worse the more it exposed itself to the sun. It immediately dove back inside the sand, as if both the frustration from having missed an easy meal and the scorching sun was too shameful for it to remain outside.

The moment it disappeared from sight the sand filled the opening it created in matter of moments. The hole sealed with a hush. The surface looked as undisturbed as the sky. Only a sharp oval ripple spread and sank, like a sigh swallowed.

“That could have ripped you in half.” Ludwig said.

He let go of her collar slowly. His eyes still measured the sand at their feet, then a body length out, then three. The Heart had come forward at the taste of danger and then receded when the moment passed.

Misty however didn’t seem surprised or panicked, but a deep frown was on her face.

Her hand touched the edge of her scarf, not to check it, but to give her fingers something to do while her thoughts ran.

“What?” Ludwig asked as he let go of her clothes. He watched her more than the dune now. Information sometimes rode on a friend’s face before it found words.

“This is a sand worm…” she looked around, “We’re too far from their territory, and this one is pretty young,” She said.

Her tone had gone dry and professional. She crouched, pressed her palm to the sand, felt for tremors. What came back was a faint shiver in the skin of the world, not the long roll of a giant.

“Pretty young? That thing was the size of a tree…” He let the word tree sit there, absurd in a place where wood existed only as memory.

“They get incredibly big. It hasn’t even formed a hard shell yet…this one is probably not even ten years old… why is it this far away,” Misty asked as she looked around. She turned slowly, scanning the lower dips, the faint gloss at the crests where wind had licked the dunes smooth. Her eyes narrowed at nothing, at everything.

“There are more worm pits around us too… this isn’t the only one here…”

“I suppose this isn’t normal behavior?” Ludwig asked as he didn’t find any clues in the moving sand to this situation. His senses reached outward, hunger for pattern pricking at him. The amulet stayed cool, the sun hot, the sand deceptive.

“It most definitely isn’t, there is something wrong here, usually the smaller Sand Worms dwell deeper in the desert near oasis areas. While the bigger ones travel across, finding either easy caravans for prey or some unfortunate sand creature that moved too far away from its herd. But there are no known oasis here, the closest one should still be about a day’s walk toward the setting sun…” Her finger pointed without thinking, tracing a line he could not see on the map of the desert in her head. Her voice had lost the earlier cheer and put on a scout’s caution.

“There is only two explanations to the migrations of creatures from their habitat…” Ludwig said. He straightened, eyes on the far line where the dunes bunched, then flattened, then bunched again like muscle.

“And those are?” Misty asked.

She stood beside him, suitcase settled, scarf tight, eyes on the same wrong calm.

“Well, the first is when it is no longer livable, if the oasis here had dried, which would make the people there leave. And by proxy, the worms leave since they won’t have a steady supply of food… Or…” Ludwig looked in the distance, “There’s an even bigger threat to the worms…”

He let the last word hang. The wind chose that moment to lift a small veil of sand and let it fall. The desert held its breath with them.

“No matter the cause though,” Misty said, “We still have to keep going.”

“That we do. Do you know where she was last seen?” Ludwig asked.

“Lady Titania reported going to the Jade Spring Oasis. It’s the closest one to here the one I talked about, it has green waters instead of blue, hence the name.”

“That isn’t usually a good color for water,” Ludwig said.

“No, it’s clean water, the oasis had a spring that broke and revealed emerald color stone so the whole thing became that color. Anyway, if there was a threat or if there is anything anyone would know, it would be the people who live here, there are a lot of nomads that choose to live beyond the Kingdom of the Sand, but not within the empire.”

“Let’s head there then,” Ludwig said.

“We’ll need a ride,” Misty replied as she looked into the distance. A thick plume of sand was rising to the east, swirling upward like smoke from some great engine.

Immediately, Misty pulled a small brass tube from her belt, a thin cord dangling from its base, and gave it a sharp tug. A bright green flare hissed into the sky, cutting through the sun’s glare. For a moment, the rolling sandstorm on the horizon hesitated, its churning slowed, and then it began to veer toward them.

“What is that?” Ludwig asked, his voice a mix of curiosity and unease.

“That,” Misty said with a grin, “is going to be our ride.”

Ludwig squinted against the wind. The ground trembled faintly beneath his boots, and the distant rumble grew into a deep, resonant hum. The wall of dust drew closer, and out of its heart came the shape of something enormous, a dark hull rising above the dunes like the spine of some ancient beast.

As it neared, the shimmering air revealed iron plating streaked with sun-worn paint, great rudders jutting from its flanks, and massive turbines beneath its keel that churned the sand into golden waves. It was a ship a true ocean vessel, yet it sailed across the desert as though the dunes themselves were water. Canvas sails, patched and sun-bleached, caught the hot wind, and long ropes trailed behind it like the tendrils of some wandering leviathan.

The ship’s prow cut through the shifting sands, leaving curling wakes in its path. Its shadow swept over them as it slowed, the sound of grinding metal and whispering sand filling the air.

Ludwig could only stare. “A ship… in the desert?”

Misty winked. “Told you we had a ride.”

Soon the ship halted not too far from them, a couple of men threw long gangplank onto the sand where Misty headed first. Ludwig followed carefully after as he watched the many people who were on top of the ship looking at their ascent. The looks weren’t friendly nor were they hostile.

Finally a woman who seemed to have taken he color of the sun met misty, “Ah Misty! Good seeing you again!” she said as she hugged the priestess. “And who’s this handsome young man?” the woman tilted her head.

“That’s my companion in this adventure Kaela, his name is Ludwig, but you might know him as Davon of Tulmud.”

Just there and then, everyone on the ship drew their long swords and pointed them at Ludwig, while the captain of the ship had a flintlock aimed at Ludwig’s head.