Maiz woke with water flowing into his mouth. He didn’t open his eyes, just drank in silent peaceful bliss. Then the ground moved, and the water stopped flowing. ‘More,' he tried to say, but all that came out was a weak croak.

“I am sorry friend. If we give more now, you will only throw it back up. Just rest.” It was a woman’s voice, full of quiet certainty and calm.

Maiz didn’t have the energy to muster a response, and as the ground moved again, the world slipped away once more.

******

Maiz woke a few times, always because of the water. It was cold, almost sweet, and so wonderful he could have wept. He was only given a little--too little, by his reckoning-before the skin was taken away from him. Each time, the woman’s voice said the same words to him, as if just checking to make sure he understood. After what felt like hours, but could easily have been minutes or days, she gave him a longer drink. The next one was longer still. Eventually Maiz stayed awake, unable to speak but feeling every sway of the animal he was sitting on. The woman didn’t speak either, but somehow Maiz felt a sense of powerful assuredness emanating from her. After the next drink, he drifted into a natural sleep.

“Wake up.” A sharp pain stung him in the face.

Maiz’s eyes shot open, and he flailed for a moment, finding his limbs entangled in sheets. He struggled to a sitting position, looking around wildly. He was in a room cut from gray stone. That felt familiar to him, right. After all, he’d been living in rooms like those for years now. This one looked remarkably similar to the little office Rin used for his research, although there were no bookshelves lining the walls. There were simple square openings cut high into the walls, letting golden sunlight filter in. He was sitting on a pallet not unlike what he’d had in the training grounds. And there was a stony faced man with arms as big as Hugan’s staring down a him.

“You are Healed. You have been washed. There are clothes by your pallet. Dress yourself. Someone will come in time.”

Maiz frowned. Where was he? What had happened to him? There was no way he’d been close enough to the desert's edge to find a human settlement, yet here he was.

The man turned and began walking out. Maiz noticed he was barefoot, wearing a loose-fitted garment somewhere between a tunic and a robe, belted at the waist with a simple band of cloth. His hair was brown, not black like most people Maiz knew, though he was just as dark as Maiz himself, if not darker.

“Uh, thank you.” It was always better to be polite when you could. ‘Kind words are often repaid in gold,’ his father had told him since he was little.

Maiz hadn’t expected the man to acknowledge his words; he didn't seem particularly friendly. But to his pleasant surprise, the muscular man stopped, bare feet slapping against the ground, garment swishing, and turned to face him once again. He bowed his head, as one did to an elder or superior where Maiz was from. “You are welcome.”

Instinctively, Maiz bowed his head awkwardly in return, struggling to make his response deeper as would be appropriate. The man didn’t seem to mind, as he turned and left.

All right then. He had no idea where he was, or why he wasn’t dead in the desert. But he could see the flashing purple icon in his vision easily enough. Before he even disentangled himself from the sheets, he focused on the symbol.

Congratulations! You have completed the Apprentice feat for the Warrior Monk title!

New bonus title gained-Ascetic

New skill gained-Enlightenment

Maiz frowned. He’d completed a feat? Strange--he didn’t know what he’d done to earn it. Unless the feat was almost dying in the desert, in which case Maiz understood why Lila had never figured it out. Either way, it was a nice little break he’d caught, and he might as well look to see what he’d gained.

Enlightenment (Warrior Monk)-An activated ability which allows the user to focus and feed off of their energy. While Enlightenment is active, the user does not need to eat, sleep, or drink. If the user eats or drinks, Enlightenment is deactivated. For each hour Enlightenment is active, the user suffers an increasing penalty to stamina regeneration. When Enlightenment is deactivated, the user experiences a portion of the physical toll they would have received without using Enlightenment.

Rank: 1

Effect: User does not need to eat, sleep or drink. For each hour Enlightenment is active, user suffers an additional -0.1 per second penalty to stamina regeneration. When Enlightenment is deactivated, the user experiences 50% of the sleep loss, starvation, and dehydration they accumulated while Enlightenment was active.

It took Maiz a while to read the full description of the new skill, and even longer to understand it. This was the most complicated skill he’d come across--well, second most. The Mask ability was probably a little stranger. But as he read the full description, he began to understand. This was a way to avoid eating or sleeping! Now he finally knew--

--how Lila had been able to train so much.

I should really stop being surprised by things like this. Maiz sighed to himself. He felt strangely calm, almost numb. Intellectually, he was slightly hurt that Lila had apparently been lying to him since they’d met, but honestly he was in no position to cast blame on her. It was almost exactly the same as what had happened with Riala. It seemed that there was justice in the world after all, but only when it applied to him. So Lila is at least Apprentice ranked, maybe even Journeyman. Well, she had been incredibly good for a Novice. Everything she’d done had been so… effortless. Even when he’d come close to hitting her in spars, he’d known deep down that he hadn’t really had a chance from the beginning. She must have been holding back in every session.

Whatever reason Lila had for pretending like she was stuck at the Novice rank, it was a little impressive that she’d managed to stay in training for so long without ringing alarm bells. Surely someone would have checked her title at some point? And, considering that it appeared that her feat was just a few days of fasting, Rin probably would have found it before long. Not to mention there were Journeymen, Adepts, and even a Master who’d been basically living with her, and she’d managed to fool them all. It all seriously begged the question of why she’d bother doing it in the first place.

But the only way he’d be able to find that out was to ask her himself. To do that, he first had to put some clothes on.

They’d given him a garment just like the large man had been wearing--putting it on was a bit of an adventure, but it was comfortable enough. The material was linen or something similar, and it was pure white. Maiz hoped nobody would invite him to eat in this--it would be very easy to stain irreparably.

While getting dressed, he also took a quick look at his Name Sheet. He’d gained a full two points in his Constitution: apparently nearly starving and dehydrating to death was severe enough physical punishment for his title to increase it, even though it was already at 26. Another welcome bonus from his time in the Waste, though Maiz didn’t think he’d have undergone the experience if he could have chosen beforehand.

Only a few minutes after he finished changing, there was a dull thudding sound by the curtained doorway to the room. Curiously, Maiz poked his head out to see what it was, only to find a pair of large gray eyes looking up at him. It was a boy, perhaps nine or ten years old, and dressed in a miniature version of the same long tunic Maiz had been given. Above his head floated the words Temple Acolyte. The child ducked his head. “Sir. Please follow me if you would. The Jin’Sa wishes to meet you.”

Huh. As Maiz nodded his head at the boy and followed him down a winding stone corridor lined with curtained doorways, he considered. Unless the boy had come here from somewhere else, apparently this place was a temple. A temple where children were born and raised. Strange. And what was a Jin’Sa? All humans spoke the same language, a consequence of learning words from the same gods, but of course some different cultures had specialized words representing things unique to their region. Even still, why would a place presumably close to Caelos use words unfamiliar to Maiz?

The boy led him through a large, open room that was devoid of any furniture. They went through another corridor, and Maiz started to wonder just how large this place was. It was strange that nobody was up and about either, though it felt like the middle of the day, so perhaps they were sleeping. Eventually the boy pushed back a curtain and gestured for Maiz to step through it, head bowed. Maiz did so, and the boy left, letting the curtain drop back to cover the doorway.

He was in a small room filled with a heady scent, somewhat similar to that of a temple altar. The incense trailing white smoke into the air was probably the source of that. The smoke drifted about the small room, making Maiz’s eyes water slightly and making strange shapes with the shifting currents of air. It also lent a definite air of mystique to the woman sitting cross-legged on a mat before the burner.

“Hello.” The woman’s voice was instantly familiar to Maiz. It wasn’t the timbre or tone, but the simple assuredness of it that made it so recognizable. This woman had few wrinkles on her face, but she felt older to him than any person he’d met besides Hakim. And Viselys.

Remembering his interview with a god gave Maiz a bit of confidence, and he bowed his head respectfully. “Hello, Jin’Sa. Thank you for my life.” He didn’t say anything more. However grateful he was to this woman, he wouldn’t acknowledge a debt to her until they’d spoken a little.

The woman inclined her head shallowly in return, not standing from her mat. “We find those like you on occasion, though few in as dire a situation. It was a powerful Dungeon you stumbled upon; water attracts the greatest threats in the desert.”

Maiz just bowed his head in response. What could he say?

“It is well that I chose to spend the morning in exercise. In any case, I assume that you have found what you were looking for. You have reached the Temple.” The woman looked up at him, clearly expecting a response.

So this is a temple. ‘The Temple.’ “It was difficult to find.” Maiz said carefully.

The woman let out a soft snort of laughter, surprising Maiz. She didn’t seem the humorous type on first appearance. “Not difficult to find, I would say. Few other things are as… conspicuous as the Temple of the Sands.”

Maiz frowned slightly, but hid it quickly. No sense in giving anything away yet. That name sounded familiar somehow. He had probably heard it in some story or another. Which meant it was at least somewhat famous.

“I will admit, I was told to come here by my, uh, teacher, ma’am. He did not explain why.” This wasn’t even a lie really. Unless Maiz had been walking in the wrong direction the entire time, this was likely the only place Hakim could have meant to send him.

Now the woman’s face broke out into a full, kindly smile. “I wonder who your teacher is that he sent you into the Waste without aid or explanation. But I would be happy to explain the Temple of the Sands to you, young one. First, I am called Isa.”

As she said this, words appeared above her head. Maiz thought she might have said something else after that, but he wasn’t listening. In spectral green was a word he’d been seeing far, far too often in recent times. Isa-Master Warrior Monk.