Nic sold the majority of the Shards he’d accumulated up to this point. Many of them were simply taking up space in his bag, so he dumped them out. The Phantasm Shard, the Vagrant Shard, Warp-Spasm, Farblade, Stonedepths- the ones he kept were the Humanity and Drowning Shards. Everything else had to go to clear up spaces.

Combined with the massive eleven shards from the humans, and the tortoise’s obvious hope that he could bargain Nic into letting the Primary go by offering sweetheart deals, Nic made three thousand credits in a matter of heartbeats.

Business could be even more cut-throat than battle.

Next he unloaded the tools he’d taken from Lavhin’s labs. The good-faith the merchant was showing to try and wriggle the Shard away from Nic was failing, but the runescribed tools were simple, good pieces capable of helping with scientific endeavors. Reinforced glass beakers, scalpels that never dulled, lenses that could measure various properties of aura and Essence…

Nic had accumulated so many his bag had actually been overflowing before he left the cultivation mat and potted tree at the oasis. Three hundred pounds of assorted junk flowed out of his bag, and they spent the better part of three hours dividing it into piles and arguing over the lots. With Inkspur shouting angrily on Nic’s shoulder the bargaining became an arena sport, drawing in amused elves to watch as they slowly strangled each other with their eyes over the course of an hour.

But if Nic had held the upper hand at first, the tortoise’s slow and unwavering patience came in for the long game. In the end Nic was argued down from his dreams of buying the Mercenary License here and now off the massive trove. Most of the pieces were only worth a credit at most. In bulk, the trouble of selling so many became apparent-

He came away with four thousand credits for the lot. Thirteen credits a pound. It was still enough to make Nic among the richest men he’d ever met.

And he’d have to get richer before he could relax.

Before he could save Tarquin.

His original plan had been somewhat derailed. He’d intended to find and sabotage Baby Boots at the human camp, but now, his tunneling method was just too thoroughly revealed to make a second go at infiltration. On the plus side…

It didn’t seem as if it was possible to progress towards the final fight without a ship, and Nic had done very well at sabotaging the human’s forward momentum there.

Add to that the money he’d made and it was definitely in the realm of a mixed success. The only danger left was escaping as the merchant began to wave scrolls at him, trying to win back some of his money by tempting Nic with ancient techniques and secret manuals-

“The Dragonlamp Eyes Cultivation. A fine technique for seeing through enemy’s cultivation secrets. Or, ah, here we have the Stonecore Armor technique, for hardening the skin…”

Nic was already turning away, tossing the Frostbind Shard from hand to hand. Then the tortoise called out...

“The Scion Awakening scroll, from the luminariums of the Seraphic Empires! Aids and eases the way through the bitter process of evolution, and allows for the finding of dark nodes, secret bloodlines, all manner of potentials that could be hidden in the young master!”

He froze.

When he turned, the tortoise had a wide, satisfied grin on his crooked old face.

“A mere eight thousand credits...”

Nic’s expression was grim. Eight thousand would be everything he’d accumulated. It was nearly half of the way towards buying Tarquin a mercenary license.

But he’d only get to evolve out of F-Class once. If it made the difference between a small jump in power and a large one…

“Sofia?”

“Nicolas. We need this. And not just for you. You have three companion beasts waiting to break through and evolve as well.” Nic nodded, realizing how much sense that made. The scroll would probably only be good for breaking through from F-Rank, but, he would still use it four or more times. The cost was a bit easier to swallow that way.

“The Seraphic Empires are experts in drawing out bloodlines. It won’t be as good as a cultivation manual for a specific line- and it’s definitely not one of the core treatises, only a side volume or a collection of notes- but the benefits we’ll gain from this one volume are immense.”

“Seven thousand.” Nic shot back.

“What, and rob my own children of their inheritance? I think not! They’ve already been waiting two thousand years for my dusty old bones to croak so they can get this fine manual. You could at least offer me seven thousand five hundred!”

“Seven thousand.” Nic repeated. “But the next two Primary Shards I sell, I’ll sell you for one thousand, two hundred…”

It was probably a good enough deal that Nic was losing money compared to the eight thousand, but importantly, it was tomorrow’s money he was spending. It would leave him enough to contact Tarquin in an emergency.

The tortoise licked his jaws, and then stuck out a hand. “Deal!”

---

Nic left the camp a hero, a richer man than he’d arrived, his bag loaded with spiced food wrapped in palm leaves and full waterskins. He had a little business to settle before he left and went to search out a dominus node for his breakthrough-

And so he headed straight for his oasis.

But he was only partway there when he paused. Someone was coming across the wastes. They wore long, loose clothing, so they’d clearly prepared for the trek, and walked with the help of a long staff atop which a piece of glass flashed.

Nic squinted.

Not a staff, not glass.

A crystal spear.

He sailed closer, Inkspur clinging to his shoulder as he cautiously approached. The woman lifted a hand and waved, slowly bending down to put her spear against the ground.

It was the same woman who Matteos had given the fountain water. The one who’d nearly vomited her own internal organs up.

She looked good, considering. Maybe a little pale.

“I hear you, uh, caused a stir in camp.” She said. “And I’m not looking to fight.” A cough hunched her over, and Nic almost stepped forward to help before she recovered. Blood flecked the hand she’d lifted to cover her mouth. “I just- I need to get away from that place. Bad things happening there.”

She paused, looking at his eternally-smiling axolotl face. “Can you understand me?”

Inkspur emerged from his chest in a swirl of black ink, crawling onto his shoulders. “You are UNDERSTOOD.”

“Tell her…” Nic paused, then shrugged. If she made it to the elf camp, well, being a prisoner there might be better than going back to the humans. There was no reason to suspect the curse couldn’t claim her a second time. “Tell her that she should keep heading north-east. The elves are good people, even if they don’t trust her.”

As Inkspur relayed the message, Nic thought for a moment. “Oh. And ask her what the last thing she remembers is, before her mind started to go cloudy or dark or whatever. Before things changed and she lost control.”

“How did you-?” The woman raised a questioning eyebrow. “Well, alright then. Since you’ve saved me from walking in the wrong direction, ah- It wasn’t dark. Or cloudy. It was like being held underwater. The whole time I was screaming but-”

She shivered. “Nobody heard. It started right after I fought this big golden scorpion. Huge bastard. Got me good in the arm, and the whole thing started to turn green and blister up with little yellow pockets of filth. It was- I was panicking. They sedated me as soon as I got to camp, carried me to the healer’s tent and then- then I was underwater.”

Nic nodded. That was two for two, and he had a good idea of who the culprit was now.

Reaching into his bag, he tossed a waterskin into her arms. “Here. Take this. Do you know someone named-” He sighed. She probably wouldn’t know him as Baby Boots, but damn, Nic wasn’t going to use that slime’s ‘real’ name. “Well, do you know an idiot with fancy red boots?”

“Dean? Yeah, that guy sucks.”

“I’ve been calling him Baby Boots.”

She tilted her head back and laughed. “He does throw tantrums.”

Nic grinned. “Is there anything you can tell me about him?”

“Not really. He’s a trust fund kid, I dunno how he got so strong so fast. He’s got a real thing about flying. There’s supposed to be some kind of quest we can all do to earn our wings, but he’s hunted down and killed anyone he’s caught in the skies…”

The brutal response to Nic’s glider suddenly made sense.

She scratched her chin. “He doesn’t know how to cook. Comes in to stock up on supplies every few days. Why? Does this creep have something to do with, y’know, the whole ‘underwater’ thing that happened to me?”

But Nic shrugged. “Nah. He’s just an asshole I’m gonna kill.”

She blinked, slowly, and then lifted a hand to a mock salute. “Right. New world, new rules, I guess. Have fun with the murder.”

“Don’t die in the desert.” Nic retorted cheerfully.

And they both went on their separate ways.

---

Nic swung by the oasis to unseal his private lair and empty the contents into his bag. The meditation mat, the workstations, the Esper fruit tree. All of it got scooped up, half-filling his bag again. The stone head went in last.

And then he stepped out into the sunlight, sealing the cave behind him like it had never been there. With a scuff of sand he buried his cookfire’s ashes. The crab shells he threw back into the lake for their cannibal brothers to pick clean.

When his work was done, he waded out to the great stone face that waited half-submerged. Blue light filled its eyes as water wept down across its cheeks.

Pulling out a skewer of rabbit and a wineskin, he planted them atop its broad, flat head.

“Red meat and wine, as requested.”

“Ahhhh. It’s been too long.” The enormous voice of the stone statue groaned. “I don’t suppose you brought a little milk and honey?”

“Kind of a big ask, seeing as there’s not enough grass to feed a cow anywhere in a million miles.” Nic shot back.

“Well enough. Look down.”

Nic blinked. Slowly turning his head down, he stared into the water, seeing the islands in the sky and the shining thread of the river reflected on the oasis’ face.

It took him a moment for what he was seeing to click in his head.

There was an island in the reflection that wasn’t in the sky.

“What-”

“This oasis can exist both in the sky and on the earth. Listen well-” The voice of the stone face blurred into a System message, becoming a strange echoing resonance that filled the inside of Nic’s skull.

Once, when the earth and sky were split apart, the goddess of the oasis decreed she would not abandon those below. She brought them rain, cool water, and the shade of palm trees to ease the suffering brought down by the angry sun.

For this transgression she was sealed within the earth by three priests, each bearing an amulet of red clay. When all three are found, only then can the door be opened, and the bridge from earth to sky reclaimed.

As it spoke a light filled the waters. A huge stone disk with three indentations lit up on the bottom of the oasis, runes around the outer edge glowing brightly. Something within his mystic bag began to resonate, and Nic pulled out the red clay amulet he’d found in the cliffs surrounding Lavhin’s hermitage. The golden scarab in the center was wriggling, legs moving, its body shining.

“This- this sounds like a quest.”

“Yes! A very important quest.” The stone head agreed. “One to restore the natural order…”

“Uh-huh.” Nic began to slooowly step away. “Well, sorry, but the thing is, I’m already full up on quests. Have as many as I can handle.”

“What? But you’ve already found one of the sacred amulets!”

“And if I find two more by accident, I guess I’ll give you a shout.” Nic was in full on retreat, hastily waving goodbye and vanishing before anyone else could dump a quest in his lap.

Couldn’t an axolotl get a few days to cultivate without needing to save a goddess or a world?

---

His last stop was simple.

He walked to the wreck of The Coarse and Rough, the ship he’d crashed not far from the oasis. Four people were huddled in the shade, their skin cracked and flaking from sun damage. Azmin hadn’t come to help them- she’d turned back and chased after Nic.

They were bracing for a fight, but only the tall, dark man who’d piloted the ship was even able to stand. He swayed from side to side, struggling to draw back the hammer of his pistol.

Nic dropped a pair of waterskins at his feet.

“Never come here again. Or we’ll FLENSE YOUR SKIN FROM YOUR BONES.” Inkspur declared. The second half was his addition to Nic’s words.

But it got the point across.