"Can you keep an eye out for me? I have some items to go through."

"I will try but I didn't sense that sand devourer coming so just don't get too distracted," Fiona said floating higher up.

I nodded to her, pulling out the first book I got in Chicago. I flipped through the pages and determined it was worthless. I put it in one of my spare rings. I continued going through the books. About half of them turned out to be useless for what I wanted.

"Where did all the books come from?"

I looked up at Fiona, "I stole them from the library in Chicago. I was hoping to further my knowledge about runes and armor crafting."

"So does that mean you want to settle down and become a crafter?"

"No, I just thought it would help me. Can't hurt right."

"So, anything interesting?"

"There are a few books that might be interesting, I will need to sit down and actually read them though."

"Does that mean you are done sorting your items?"

"Almost, I still have to go through the stuff I stole off of Sharla, her Father, and Obidiah."

I had to search through eight storage rings before I found Sharla's. Of course, it had to be the last ring I searched in.

I pulled out each item one at a time and inspected it.

Crafted Leather Brigandine

Quality: Excellent

Armor: 18

Slashing resistance: 40%

Stabbing resistance: 40%

This metal-reinforced leather brigandine was crafted by a novice crafter with good materials.

When I pulled out the armor it brought up old feelings of rage and anger. It had a silver embroidered dragon head, prominent on the chest. I should remove the fabric and replace it with something else before I sold the armor. Putting it back, I checked the other items.

Health Injector(100HP) x10

Mana Injector(100HP) x10

Clark Family Long Sword

Teleportation Scrambler

Enhanced Slave Collars x6

Rations x20

Water Bottle x5

Emergency Signal Ring

I slapped my forehead when I found the food and water, I should have checked the rings earlier. Oh well, the weapons I traded weren't worth much anyway. I took all the health and mana items into my ring.

Fiona floated down when I pulled out the sword, touching it lovingly. I asked her what she wanted me to do with it.

"If we ever return to the Commander, please give it to him. Perhaps he can find a way to return it to my family."

I nodded.

I was tempted to just toss the slave collars into the sand and let them be buried for all eternity. But I held off, deciding they may come in handy as improvised explosives again. I tucked them away, for now, eventually, I would transfer them to one of the smaller rings.

The Teleportation Scrambler was a neat item. I remember it was the item Sharla's Father had given to her. It looks like she kept it.

Teleportation Scrambler: Produces a field that prevents anyone from entering a room without using a standard entrance.

That would come in handy, I think I will keep it. The last item was the Emergency Signal Ring, I checked the description.

Emergency Signal Ring: Triggering the ring using a bit of mana will alert the wearer of the other ring that you are in danger.

The ring was useless without its counterpart. Neither Obidiah nor Sharla's Father had the ring on them. My guess was it was lost in the building destruction. I tossed the ring into the sand as I kept walking.

Harold and Obidiah had very little on them. Certainly no storage rings. I did get an interesting ring from Obidiah.

Temporal Skip: Once per day the user can skip in time.

"Fiona?"

"Yes?" she asked, floating down.

"Tell me what this looks like."

I activated the ring as I walked forward. I could feel the effects deactivate after two seconds.

"How odd, it looks like you leave after images as you walked."

"I thought as much, Obidiah used the item against me in our fight. I might hold on to it."

I put the ring in my storage. Sharla's Father had no items on him, I did pry open the safe in his office though. There were mostly documents about the Black Dragon. Those I left, but I did take the journal and the credit stick that was stored in there. That added another 2000 credits to my measly fifteen I had left from my shopping spree. I would look through the journal later.

I let Fiona know I completed my inventory. The other small rings held nothing of value other than slave collars. I choose one and dumped the useless books and items into that ring. Maybe someone would want to buy them.

I pulled my staff out and inspected it. It was in rough shape. The blade was broken off and it was discolored from my repeated use of multiple imbuements. I needed a weapon capable of handling my elemental powers. It was obvious my current staff would not last much longer at this rate. Maybe it was finally time to rune craft a staff.

The rest of the day went by quietly, I actually forgot Fiona was there until her voice startled me.

"Incoming."

I looked toward the direction she was pointing. I couldn't tell what it was but there was a plume of dust. "Any idea who or what it is?"

"Riders of some sort, I'm going invisible."

I nodded and drew my staff, then I checked to see if all my buffs were active. I stood at the top of the dune watching the three riders approach on...four-wheelers?

They stopped about a hundred feet out, the one in the lead turned towards the other two before they hopped off the vehicle. The person walked toward me.

"Hello there, friend," the man spoke in a thick Creole accent.

"That's far enough, what do you want?" I asked, keeping my staff planted in the ground.

"Clem spotted someone wandering in the desert and we thought we could provide aid. We didn't mean to startle you friend, and we mean no harm."

I snorted at that, "You from Arman?"

"We are, haven't seen you around before. How'd you hear about our little slice of heaven."

"I ran across Gok's compound."

"Ah the scaly folk, nice enough if you're trading."

"I guess if you want to be fleeced for some simple items."

The man laughed at that, "true enough. I'm Martin by the way. We do monster patrols and trade with the surrounding communities. You want a ride to Arman?"

I looked towards the four-wheeler and asked, "How did you get those running?"

The man looked back towards his vehicle, "Oh those old things, good old Creol engineering." the man said, smiling.

I knew they weren't mana engines. Too much noise for one, and the smoke coming out of the tailpipe spoke of the internal combustion.

While we were talking I saw Fiona fade into view behind the other two vehicles. She didn't pull her blade so I figured things looked ok on her end.

"Well, if you're offering a ride I guess it would be rude for me to decline. By the way, what state am I in?"

"Well, Arman was located in Southern Louisiana. Hard to say if we are in the same state anymore. Can't see the ocean and we haven't spotted it within three days ride of Arman."

I grit my teeth. 'It could take me months to find my way back north. Might just be better to stay in this area.'

I started walking down the hill, when I got to the bottom I shook Martin's hand, "I'm Paul by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Paul. That's Clem and Joshua," the man said, gesturing to each.

Now that I was close enough, I used Identify on all three. It was more important for me to know what I was dealing with than offending people.

Martin | Occultist | Level 7

Clem | Ranger | Level 8

Joshua | Shifter | Level 7

"Go ahead and hop on the back, Paul. Make sure you hold on tight it's a rough ride in this sand, we have to go quite fast to avoid the sandworms."

I nodded in response.

Their chosen classes were interesting, I was slightly surprised by the low levels though. I guess it made sense if they didn't have to fight constantly like I was forced to.

I stored my staff and got a raised eyebrow from Martin.

"Storage ring," I said, showing him the item on my finger. I wasn't afraid of these three attacking me and was curious to see their reaction. Mild interest was all I saw from their eyes.

"Yea we seen a few, not many round here have em though. I know Gok has one, a couple folk that passed through also had them. Never did say where they got em though."

I shrugged, "Probably picked them up at the Bazaar."

When I got blank looks, I added, "big magical building that leads to a multidimensional flea market."

"Uh... huh," was all Martin said, "any idea where we could find this Bazaar?"

I had to shrug again, "not around here, I originally came from Chicago. There was one there and another a few days north of that one. They seem to spawn randomly but usually around major urban areas."

"Hmm, Biloxi might have one then," Joshua said.

I hopped on the back seat of the quad, glad it had side handles. It would be a little weird for me to hug the torso of a man I just met.

"We can talk about it when we return, should get moving. Sandworms could be here anytime."

I hoped Fiona could keep up.

We crossed dunes at a staggering speed, these vehicles easily tearing through the sand with their paddle tires.

"So, Paul, what did you do before?"

I barely heard Martin over the rushing wind, "IT," I said, not really wanting to drag up my past shitty job.

"Oh, that's cool. Had a brother that did that in Biloxi."

"What did you do," I asked, expecting the normal small talk.

"I helped the cartel run drugs. Well, most of the town did really. Don't worry though, kind of hard to run drugs across the ocean when you got no ocean," the man added, chuckling.

"Seems like a dangerous profession," I added warily.

"It was, but we weren't really given a choice. Cartel thugs took over the town years ago. The System was the best thing to happen to us since. The thugs went crazy when it hit but we knew it was a sign. The city banded together and we took care of the problem once and for all. Good people died to see it happen, may they rest in eternal peace. Anyway, now we patrol to keep the area safe from monsters and roaming gangs."

"Shitty people everywhere," I mumbled.

The man had good hearing, "That there are, that there are."

The trip was just as rough as the man said. I held a death grip on the handles as we crested dunes fast enough to be airborne. The man had no issue keeping the vehicle under control, perks of the system.

I heard Clem shout, "On our right!"

I looked over and saw the telltale sign of a Sand Devourer. It looked like it was trying to cut us off.

"Hold on tight, looks like we're going to cross paths with the worm."

Thirty seconds later a funnel started to form in front of us. Martin gunned it as we flew over the forming pit. I looked back and saw Joshua drop an item into the hole as he veered around it. A few seconds later a boom resounded followed by a spray of sand. The monster shrieked and sped off in another direction.

"That should keep him off us."

"Why not kill it?"

"Ha, things are tougher than all get out. When they are injured they also like to burn the area, hot enough to turn sand to glass. No thanks, I'll stick with tossing some C4 into their gullets from time to time."

Couldn't argue with that, I doubt they had abilities like me. I already knew they didn't have my level. I doubt I would have been able to kill the one I fought without Fiona helping me.

The rest of the trip went by quickly and quietly. The dunes started to become smaller, eventually, transitioning into swampy soil. The quads had no issues operating in this stuff either but they didn't have to for long. After about a mile we exited onto drier ground and followed a road up to a shed.

"We gotta park the quads here, paddle tires don't work so well on hard dirt."

I nodded and stepped off of the machine. I was stiff from the ride but happy to not have to traverse the rest of the desert and swamp on foot.

"Thanks for the lift."

"No problem, we needed to head to town anyway. I can introduce you to the constable. She will be happy to show you around our community."

From my point of view, these people were way too trusting, but if they had a whole town backing them up there was little any single person could do to them. I decided to walk with the three men, it helped work the soreness out of my limbs.

It was another three or four miles before the town came into view. A wall made of old vehicles, building supplies, and sections of raised dirt and stone surrounded the place. A makeshift gate had been placed along the road. I could see people walking along the top, no guns in sight. That was a good thing in my mind. I did see a few bows though.

Martin waved to the people on top of the gate, a few waved back, the others just kept an eye on me.

We passed through the open gate and Martin walked up to a guard sitting at a table, on the ground level, "Any idea where Sally is?"

"You should really use her title," the man grumbled.

Martin barked a laugh, "she's my sis, I'll call her what I want."

"Fine, and when she kicks your ass, I'll make sure to let Luise know not to heal you. She's probably at Hanigan's."

"Thanks, Roger," Martin said, waving as we walked down the street.

The town was quaint. It was definitely old-school south. The houses were large and ornate, everything was high off the ground, stairs leading to entrances. A remnant of their pre-system location being below sea level. As we got closer to downtown, the buildings got smaller and closer together. Eventually, they were wall to wall, none of the buildings rising over three stories tall.

It reminded me a lot of where I grew up in the north. Small town Americana at it's finest. Eventually, we stopped outside what looked like a bar. The sign read Hanigan's

"Here we are," Martin said enthusiastically.

The group pushed through the door into the bar, the inside was clean and quiet. A few candles lit the space, providing just enough light to drive the gloom away. The building wasn't designed for natural light to filter in, hence the candles.

A woman was behind the bar cleaning some glasses, Martin walked up to her. "How's it going, sis? Oh, I brought a new arrival to meet you."

I could see the woman tense up when he called her sis. She placed the glass back on the table and glared at Martin, "how many times, do I have to tell you, call me Constable or Miss Jenning."

Martin rolled his eyes, "Yeah, yeah. Anyway, this is Paul. Found him wandering around the desert."

The woman turned her gaze towards me, looking me up and down. I figured if she was going to give me the third degree I might as well do the same, activating Identify.

Sally Jenning | Freehome Constable | Level 10

She had a respectable level for someone in the ass-end of nowhere. I was curious about her class but chose not to inquire. If she didn't know I had Identify I wasn't going to freely divulge the information at this time.

After she took my measure she smiled, it seemed forced and didn't reach her eyes. "Nice to meet you, Paul, sticking around or just passing through?"

"Not sure yet, it really depends on what I find in the area."

"Well, we are more than glad to have you stay if you chose to, always good to have another fighter to keep the monsters at bay."

"I don't ever recall saying I was one."

She laughed, "it's easy enough to see by the way you hold yourself and the way your eyes quickly scan a room."

"Fair enough," I replied. "For now I could just use a room and food."

"My brother can lead you to the hotel. Gates are locked at dusk. If you leave town don't expect them to open again until morning."

I nodded in acknowledgment before Martin led me back out and towards the hotel.

"Your sister isn't overly friendly," I stated blandly.

"She just needs to get to know you a bit before she warms up to ya. Too many issues with outsiders' pre-system, left her a bit apprehensive of new faces. Just stay out of trouble and you'll be fine."

I nodded as we walked.

"Here we are, Case de Arman," Martin said, arm extended to present the hotel.

The building was a three-story brick construction with large stone columns that ran all the way up and through the wrap-around walkway.

"Thanks, I think I can take it from here."

"Sounds good, oh forgot to mention, rooms are ten credits a night. I guess I should have asked if you had the credits before leading you here, I'm sorry."

"That's fine, Martin, I have the credits."

"Excellent. Hey if you're interested I may have a job for you in the morning. I will meet you in the lobby in the morning to discuss it further."

Before I could deny or accept the offer the man was gone, running off down the street. I just groaned.

"Excitable fellow," I heard Fiona say quietly.

She was still invisible and I chose not to respond as I walked into the hotel to get a room and some food.