Time Since Reckless Self-Endangerment: 5 Days 16 Hours

Goal: Save Tarquin

Pearl of the 999th Hell. Plutonian // Archive. And the master said thusly, within an ivory orb the size of a single sand grain lies a realm unto itself. Do not trust it. If one soul is to walk the path of mastery, a world of the dead must bow. WARNING. But the student only shook his head, and his hands trembled, for he feared to walk down this path. Throw this cursed thing away. If you have the strength to face eternity, press this sacred gift upon your brow.

Nic winced as two warring voices filled his skull. Feedback screamed through his head as the two tried to overwhelm each other. The pearl tumbled from his hand as he lurched forward, dropping to one knee and gasping.

Instantly the pain stopped.

It sat on the sand, glaring up at him like a dark eye.

Nic shivered. This was the first time the System had done anything like this. In fact, it didn’t even seem like it was purely the System. No, there was some other force opposing the System’s words, interfering with the messages.

And on an instinctive level, that terrified him.

Nic wasn’t exactly… It wasn’t as if the System had been kind to him, his whole life.

The System wasn’t even the kind of entity that understood kindness or mercy.

But it had been there for every moment of his existence, and the idea of something else being able to challenge it was terrifying on a deep, morbid level. After all. What if the alternative - the Other System - was worse?

He stared down at the pearl and considered leaving it behind. Letting the desert claim it.

“Nak? Are you alright?”

Matteos had caught up, carrying a wounded elven man across his shoulders like a lump of firewood. He reached down, grasping Nic’s shoulder.

Nic shook him off. “Fine.” He croaked, reaching down to seize the pearl. The familiar stabbing pain didn’t stop him from shoving it down into his mystic bag.

“Sofia?” He asked as he climbed onto his feet. “What the hell is that and why could it fuck with the System?”

“Nicolas. I’m afraid it’s beyond my authority - far beyond my authority - to say. I’m fighting - hard - to get you access to that knowledge, but there’s another Sophont and she’s interfering.”

“So this Azmin has a Sophont?” The silence told him everything. Another can’t say, which meant, yes.

Nic looked behind him. The elves were a ragged bunch and they were spread out across the sand, unable to march in any tight formation. The farther they walked the more the sick and wounded got left behind, and he could only see the last in line as a vague dot on the horizon.

But turning back and moving at the weakest’s pace would mean death.

He’d broken one of their ships and burned the three in the camps, but there was no telling if there was a fifth or a sixth still afield. Any moment a scout-ship could return to find the camp in chaos and begin following after them.

Nic was beginning to feel the slimy sweat drip down his back, even in the freezing air of a desert night. The sand was black as night and two immense darknesses, sky and earth, spread out all in directions.

This was the part he hadn’t planned for.

All his work had gone towards breaking the elves out, dealing with the enemy, plotting to run circles around the humans in battle. It had been a good plan. He just hadn’t realized how much of the struggle would come after, when he had to lead a caravan of the crippled and weak across a hostile landscaping, hoping every minute for a sail on the horizon bringing Sula’s elves to the rescue-

And dreading a sail on the opposite horizon, carrying the humans in pursuit.

Step by step.

One foot in front of the other.

The next time he looked back, the vague blur on the horizon was gone. The last one in line had dropped away and slipped beyond the horizon. Nic sighed and turned forward-

And back-

And scowled at what he was about to do.

Conjuring a wave of sand underfoot, he shot off towards the west, searching desperately for something he could use. Ruined houses and broken remnants of cities littered this part of the desert. He found the remnant of a house where the main timber beam of the roof had fallen to the sand, mostly intact, and with a grunt he dragged it out into the clear of the desert.

Crickets chirped in the ruins. Small, desert-dwelling bats fluttered overhead, feasting on the insects.

He lifted the sands with all his strength, pushing up against the beam as he stood atop it. Sand pushed it forward slowly, picking up momentum as he pressed his cultivation to the limit, sending every mote and iota of Essence he could to drive it forward through the sands like a ship.

It made his meridians ache and his soul felt the pressure of the beam like a weight on his innermost being, pressing down - it felt heavy in the way sadness or anger felt heavy.

But the beam moved, cutting forward through the dunes. It gathered speed and momentum until he was sailing along, the wind flicking at his gill-fronds as he returned to the group, sand washing up over the beam’s front like a ship cutting through the waves.

He veered for the back of the group, following the tracks that led back over the dunes. His Eight-Eyed Mantle expanded his sight from horizon to horizon, his eyes adapted to the dark, seeing the small motions of burrowing animals coming up from their dens.

And the sight of an elven woman, bent over, vomiting the pitiful contents of her stomach. She had eaten nothing for days but the mix of sickness and exertion was pushing her to spill up threads of empty bile.

On the horizon, Nic finally saw it.

A sail cutting towards them from the human camp. His heart skipped a beat as he saw the white fin ripping through the desert landscape like the fin of a massive shark.

He reached out and pulled the elven woman onto the beam, turning slowly, grinding sand into the air as he changed directions. There was no turning back now.

Either he got out with everyone, or he didn’t get out.

As he pulled up alongside the main cluster of elven prisoners, he began frantically gesturing, pointing to the slowest and most wounded. Matteos got it right away.

And he got what Nic meant when Nic gestured towards the horizon and drew his finger across his neck.

“If you can’t run, get aboard and hold tight! If you can run, start running now!” He lifted the wounded and sick onto the beam, and all the while Nic was drenched in sweat, feeling his heart beat hard against his ribs. Something about taking care of this flock filled him with tension in a way no life-risking adventure, no fight, ever had.

Slowing down to bring the elves aboard was costing him precious time. It would take whole minutes to get the crude vessel back up to speed, and his exhaustion was growing by the second.

The first time he tried to lift the sands and make the beam lurch into motion again, it failed. His aura spluttered out, burned past the point of exhaustion, and the sand collapsed. He groaned and bent low. The pain of having exhausted his cultivation to this level was immense. It filled him with hollow fires, an empty ache like being hungry or choking for lack of air.

He dug into his bag, taking out the vial of pills he’d stolen from Azmin’s tent.

They weren’t made for restoring aura in a hurry, but he bit down, crushing them in his slimy jaw and swallowing them. His cultivation core burned them like fuel, not absorbing the Essence within but just grinding it down for a brief spike in power.

He tried again, and this time, his makeshift ship surged forward. The sand lifted and speed began to gather as he burned through the power from the Spirit Purifying Pill, already feeding another between his lips.

The sail was over the horizon now. The ship was gaining on them, bearing down with superior weight and speed.

Nic couldn’t escape them. He could only draw out the chase for as long as possible, turn minutes into hours. Hope that Sula would catch him. Hope that he could come up with some desperate ploy to turn the tables.

And in the worst case, he’d fight.

The first ship he’d taken down had been unaware of him, full of scouts rather than fighters. This one was a hunting vessel aimed for his death and loaded with the best the camp could send to run him down.

“Sofia, any great ideas?”

“Just the obvious. Nicolas. If you leave these ones behind, you’ll still have saved half the prisoners.”

Nic didn’t answer.

But he pushed himself harder.

Minutes dripped past in slow, agonizing silence. The ship was coming closer all the time. From a sail on the horizon it grew until he could see the hull and prow, torchlight flickering aboard the deck. Then he could see the people aboard, readying their weapons as they watched him crawl forward.

He chewed down two more pills without hesitation.

The beam slid over a dune, tipping down into its shadow. For one moment they were out of sight of the vessel.

“Go.” Nic croaked. He lifted the nearest elf and pushed them forward, sending them staggering across the sand. “GO.” They understood his tone if not his words, and they began to run, leaving the beam behind. Nic used the sand to turn it - making a barrier the ship’s rudder would crash against as it crested through the dune.

He pulled out two of his new pyro-lobs, sticking them to the beam. And then he ran. Scrambling down the dune after the elves as the ship came groaning over the crest of the sand, smashing into the beam with a brutal crack and an echoing roar as the grenades detonated. Fire and poison sprayed across the hull, igniting, and the whole ship lurched aside as the timber bent and splintered.

The sand poured into the breach. The magic that kept the ship suspended inches above the ground was failing, the front end grinding against the earth. The friction made the whole ship pivot against that crashing point of contact, starting to tilt over.

Nic drew his bow.

As the first human leapt over the railings with a roar, axe in hand, Nic shot them dead in the chest. Blood spurted out and their legs failed as they hit the sand.

A moment later a healer - a small, dark-haired man with impeccably white gloves and a long green coat - was beside them, pushing healing energy against the wound. Shielding him was the golden-winged warrior. Jessie, the man with arms of ice, the woman with her doppleganger twin…

More. A man with a whip that crackled with fire. A young boy with green thorned vines extending from his right arm.

Nic cracked his neck as the Wintertusk Bracer expanded him to human size.