[Complete] the Mana-Wilds #1: A Cataclysmic Conjunction

Chapter 5

Night eclipsed the sands upon the Plains of Peresh as David, Isaiah, and the Aasimar Twins Tutoria and Tomos strode their way across the desert with careful steps. The heavy pressed tracks left behind by the monastery's despoilers were still afresh with its fattened parade across the land. Taking into the shadows that the night brought forth with only David's faintest glimmer of his Pip-Boy's built-in flashlight set to its lowest luminosities, the group followed the Marauder Chief, known as the Sandstorm's footprints that lay embedded on the sand. If there were any gods of karma, the despoiler's red-handed greed would be their downfall.

"Stay low..." David ushered everyone as he went prone and crawled the next few dozen meters quietly towards the peak of the sand dune.

The sand they now stepped upon had changed from scorching coals into frigid snow that one's breath could be easily seen by the drastic shift in climate.

"So... so... cold..." Tomos chattered his teeth as he wrapped another layer upon his scarf to foment what little heat he could trap within his body for himself.

"I am here brother." Tutoria shared a spare cloth for him. Being more physically able, she could weather such extremities... if just only significantly longer. "Have we arrived where those ravagers rest?"

"Take a look, girlie." David crawled aside for Tutoria as the two looked over the Dune.

A source of those lights had formed a camp or a carousel of wagons to be more precise. Five Wagons, four large and covered ones, rested below the hollow bottom of a bowl-shaped sand formation where the main camp had spawned. If one can recall their ranger's nature knowledge this would be called a 'basin'. A commanding view atop, and a warming shelter below. Across David and Tutoria was another dune that housed a smaller wagon that acted as some kind of lookout across the Desert's expanse.

"How many of them are down there?" Tutoria asked David.

"Give or take... fifteen or more." David estimated through the faint shadows the light had brought forth from the Nethysian Camp's bonfire. "They seemed to look nastier than the ones we fought back at your place." The Ranger noticed seeing the Marauders sporting much heavier armor and a more varied array of weapons compared to what he and Isaiah had disposed of earlier. Great cleavers stood rank and file amongst multi-toothed spears compared to the more mundane swords and axes the Bandits had wielded earlier. They were indeed within the Sandstorm's inner circle.

"The Sandstorm left only the dispensable minions to clear out the rest of the Monastery whilst making off with our Treasures." Tutoria explained. "The Chieftain should be expecting their peons that stayed behind to ransack what's left of the Monastery to return to him by now. They won't be expecting survivors, let alone attack him in the middle of the night."

"So, which one of them is the Sandstorm?" David pointed out.

"The rumors say that the Sandstorm wears a purple ponytail atop on their half-painted Nethysian Mask A vain one through and through as they say." Tutoria answered as she pouted disappointingly. "What whispers I had heard, they say the Sandstorm was once a Cleric of the All-Seeing Eye before the Cataclysm. The Cleric went mad upon the Death of their God. In some mad bid to 'revive' him, the Sandstorm began to ransack all of Qadira for years, pillaging every scrap of what little is left here for some kind of means to resurrect him. Such atrocities had brought the Sandstorm a following of equally depraved savages to their banner. The Cleric is said to have awesome ability to control Magic with their maddening abandon: Winds, Water, Fire and many more. Devastation can only be left where the Sandstorm and his ilk rear their ugly head."

They quietly observed the gathering of sand scum as they helped themselves of Larder-stolen bread and drew lots against who may have the rest of the Monastery spoils to themselves, before a horn beckoned their attention away from their roguish occupations. Catching David's eyes out came forth a purple ponytail as told by the Sarenite. The Sandstorm stood above the rest of their fellows...