The harsh Sun was three quarters in the horizon, glowing gold as the rest of the sand dunes. Ava and her companions had traveled couple hundred of lis out, areas where the Post Human knew nothing about. Sticking with Muzaid was the best decision, to explore these badlands.

The journey was largely boring as Muzaid had worked his best to navigate the treacherous sand dunes. He felt Ava was able to handle most dangers but he didn’t want to impose too much on her. There was also a matter regarding her request, which he had given his word on.

Muzaid eventually led the party to one of oases first scouted by Makya in advance. It was situated between two sandstone walls, shielded from arid desert winds. Vegetation was lush with few shrubs and trees but vitally the water was potable and no Javalan Flies were around.

Muzaid got off from his mount, “Guys, I think it’s time to take a break. Husan, you’re fine with it, right?”

“No problem, Muzaid. This old man isn’t in a rush anyway.” Husan also got off and started to flex all four of his arms.

Ava’s stomach grumbled as she descended from her Sand Komodo with Kas, “Ava questions, how long until Ava can get the black rock?”

“Haha young missy! Before that, let this old man cook for you!” Husan started to put some of his bags on his mount on the ground.

Muzaid lightly coughed, “Husan is right. Let’s eat first; I can guarantee his cooking. As for the black rock, don’t worry. We’ll go for it after getting the first material for Husan, soon.”

“Ava confirms.” Her golden eyes flickered, “Ava want to pick some flowers.”

Makya got the hint and moved with her, “I will be going with Young Miss.”

“Be careful, I feel someone’s been following us.” Muzaid nodded to her, before moving with Kas and Husan to select a good place for a fire pit.

His caution was warranted; Shalim had ambushed the party before and the warrior felt this was just the beginning. Ava and Makya lightly nodded to his warning, departing from the grassy clearing and then headed toward a more secluded place in the oasis.

Both young girl and adult woman walked tens of paces, passing by some palm trees and brown-coloured boulders. It was now dusk and a few minutes away before the curtain of chilly night descended on this place. Desert winds had more or less died down at this moment.

“What does Young Miss think?” Makya was the first to break the ice.

Ava replied her question with a question, “So not only Ava felt it. What does Sister Makya think?”

“Young Miss already knew the answer, so why ask?” Makya sighed. She knew Ava was unfathomable but what was this young girl waiting for?

Ava tilted her head and then lightly stomped around a few times, “Ava is just curious.”

“Okay then. Shall we head back?” Makya decided to shift the topic. There was no use to think about it since every wanderer have their own secrets and may not be willing to share.

The young girl’s nose twitched, “Ava confirms. Old Man Husan is indeed a good cook.”

“Yes, but he’s only good at certain stuff. This sister can do better than some stinkin’ old man.” Makya snorted in response. Whether hers or Husan’s cooking is better was a matter of perspective.

The duo retraced their steps, to meet up with the rest of the party. Enticing smells and sizzling sounds greeted them, coming from a fire pit between Muzaid and Husan. They had been cooking an assortment of fish, vegetables and some meat while waiting the girls to come back.

“So, it’s like this, we’ll eat first and then look for Husan’s first material here.” Muzaid beckoned them to the fire.

Ava gripped the skewer given by Muzaid, “Old man Husan’s material is here? What is it?”

“Nothing’s important, just some fruit juice young missy can find anywhere! But there’s a secret to it.” The four armed elder pointed at some of the trees in vicinity.

Ava bit into the skewer, its fresh flavor burst in her tiny mouth, “A secret?”

“The time for it. Any other time, it tastes horrible.” Makya sat next to Ava, facing the fire.

Husan nodded like a sage, “Yeah, the time to harvest it. Since we’re already friends, this old man will show young missy after our meal.”

“When did you become a teacher, eh old Husan? Haha, you’re so stingy before!” Muzaid gulped down a bowl of boiled oasis water.

Husan shot him a side-eye, “Hey, at least this grandfather knows how to pay his benefactor.”

“We’re in this together, Husan!” The warrior laughed it off, not taking the old man’s snide remark seriously.

The party continued to make some empty talks over the course of the meal. Sunlight had entirely disappeared, chill of the night repelled by the bonfire. By the time the fire had died down to embers, Husan got up and walked to a particular direction while observed by others.

The old man used all four of his arms, peering and flipping some plant matter in the area. He moved from tree to tree before stopping in front one of them. The tree looked like a date palm but it wasn’t. Only its feathery green leaves were visible, the rest inside the water.

He held some kind of maroon-coloured item hanging from the tree, “Young missy, this is it. We call this the water palm.”

“Ava asks, water palm? This item does not look like a fruit.” Ava stared at it. It looked more like a chunk of wood rather than a fruit. It had a peculiar shape, like a porcupine of sorts.

Husan produced a knife and an earthen jar, “Haha! Not everyone knows what a water palm is! So, we take its sap, not its juice. Let this old man get it first.”

“Sweet.” The young girl exclaimed after licking a bit of it, smeared over some leaves by Husan.

Muzaid also got to work, “So Husan, as usual?”

“Yeah Muzaid. Don’t get it wrong this time!” Husan laughed at the warrior as he was still a novice in selecting the correct fruit.

Ava stood on the water’s edge, “Sister Makya talked about time, but what time is it for this water palm?”

“Oh, we look at its colour, smell and shape. It’s best before ripe but not anyone can estimate it. It took this old man some years to get it right.” Husan lifted his nose up, proud of his long experience in getting the tasty sap.

Muzaid cut through a number of such fruits before finding a good one, “Urgh this is hard. Hey Husan, why is it must be done at night? I can’t tell which one, it’s too dark to make out clearly.”

“Haha! That’s why this grandfather said you’re still a novice! All those years fumblin’ ain’t for nothing, boy!” Husan guffawed at Muzaid’s predicament.

Ava picked up one of the discarded husks, “Brother Muzaid is right. The light level is too low to make out the fruit colour. Ava requests an explanation, old man Husan.”

“Oh, young missy, you have Kas, right? Tell it to get the fruit with this smell. When it had found some, call this old man. We also need to get a feel of its shape.” The four-armed old man handed Ava a half-cut fruit.

The Post Human nodded and then called for Kas, the rat. Makya remained uninterested and instead started to throw some sticks in the water, catching some fishes swimming in the oasis. It took some minutes until the rat came running to Ava as it was deep asleep after prior meal.

Ava could easily sense where the fruits were but she didn’t know what to look for, what kind of fruit that was acceptable. There were more than twenty of them in this area, each with their own unique signatures. She decided to go with the flow, to tune her detection schemes.

While the rat was slower than Ava on localizing the fruits, it had managed to spot them all and brought Ava to three of them that matched the smell of the half-cut fruit given by Husan. Ava peered at them and selected one at random before calling over the four-armed elder.

“Nothing less than what this grandfather expected. So young missy, why do you think this fruit is it?” Husan clapped his hands, it wasn’t ten minutes yet Ava and Kas had found one.

Chi, chi, chi!

“Kas says it had contributed too, old man. He is unhappy with your statement.” Ava said with a deadpan expression.

Husan briefly stared at the rat that was baring its fangs at him, “Okay, okay. Yeah, Kas had helped too. Why don’t young missy select the other two?”

“Ava do not know. Luck?” The Post Human glanced at Kas and then Husan. The rat shrugged; it didn’t know any better either.

The four-armed old man scratched his thin beard, “Yes, that’s correct. To this grandfather’s eyes, the other two fruits are about the same. Luck also plays an important factor. Let’s open this one and see your luck, young missy.”

The old man cut the hard fruit and smeared some of its sap on some leaves. He gave them to both Ava and Kas, waiting for their reactions. The rat liked it so much that it also munched the leaf. Ava on the other hand licked it once, turned blank while putting the leaf away.

“This is not sweet, bitter.” The Post Human stuck her tongue out at Husan.

The old man chuckled while getting another similar fruit to the left of them, “Hahaha! That’s why this old man said it’s about luck! It was too early, the fruit not ready. But for desert rats, this is what they crave.”

“Are you finished by now, old man? Muzaid?” Makya emerged from nearby bushes, with a bunch of freshwater fishes on a steel thread in tow.

Muzaid was clad in mud, in his hand some kind of grass, “Only grandfather Husan knows. Anyway, I found water chestnuts!”

“This old man had enough of them! Muzaid, go look for Hakeem’s herbs!” As the warrior was some distance away from them, Husan shouted at him.

Muzaid put the water chestnuts to the shore and washed the mud off him, “Yeah. I’m not cut at this water palm stuff. Ava, you’re joining?”

“Brother Muzaid want to look for medical herbs?” Ava flipped some of the water chestnuts, examining them thoroughly. Is there any difference between her world’s water chestnuts to this world’s?

Makya answered them both, “Let me go with you two. I also wanted to look for some, for backup.”

Both robust warrior and young girl nodded at Makya, not minding her presence. Husan stayed put with Kas, saying he wanted to look for something else among the water palm trees. The trio moved to another part of the oasis, littered with shrubs and unique plant life.

Some of the bushes were fuzzy akin to a cotton ball with greenish hue while others looked more like ball of thorns. Some of them were almost indistinguishable from surrounding rocks until Ava pointed it out and Muzaid explaining it as a plant that mimicked random stones.

The warrior wore a serious expression while carefully dug out a small plant over the side of a cliff, “Okay, that’s one. How’s things on your end, Makya?”

“Easy. Hakeem sure gave you troublesome job.” Makya pulled off some weed-like stuff, brown and thin.

Muzaid digressed, seldom stealing glance at Ava, “Hey, it’s mutual. Who else would give us medicines on the cheap, or free sometimes?”

“What kind of plant is beneficial?” Ava noticed his glance and shot a question.

Muzaid extracted himself from the cliff and then gave a papyrus slip to Ava, “There’s a few, used to make Hakeem’s salves we used earlier. Here’s a handy reference.”

“Ava questions, there are secrets to it as well, right?” The young girl moved her gaze back and forth, between the papyrus slip and some of the plants in the area.

The warrior put the plant he got into a small bag, “Yeah. Some of them are only found in hard to reach places, or need some special procedure. The one this brother got is one of the troublesome ones.”

“Troublesome, Brother Muzaid?” Ava looked at the plants on the cliff, similar to what Muzaid took.

The warrior expected this question and threw a rock at the cliff’s plants, “Yes. Look what happens when the rock hits the plant.”

Ssst! Ssst!

“The rock had melted? Is the plant corrosive?” Ava stared at the result. Her senses initially told her that it was largely harmless.

Makya went for what seemed a bunch of random grasses, “That’s why Sister Makya said Hakeem gave Muzaid some hard requests, Young Miss. Even if Hakeem paid Sister big time, Sister wouldn’t come close to any of them, even with a zhang-long pole.”

“Haha, now you make me look like a fool! No risk, no gain! Not my fault when his recipe stated so!” Muzaid laughed it off. It is true Hakeem’s recipe called for difficult plants but Muzaid was no herbalist and didn’t know the specifics.

Makya’s clothes bag was full with some herbs at this point, “Anyway, I got what I wanted. What else left, Muzaid?”

“I need your string skills. There’s this plant that’s a bit, uh, tricky.” Muzaid pointed to a greenish plant with fine silvery hairs and then at flat cacti, “Oh and that fruit too.”

Ava sat on a nearby rock, watching the duo in action. She recognized them; the first plant was Silver Prickle Tomato and the second, Pink Pad Cacti. Both required special handling but they had their uses. The first plant’s ripe fruits can be processed to make anti-parasites medicines.

The cacti on other hand could be used to prevent bone wasting among the elderly or in some places, gelled form of the cacti further helped in purifying contaminated water with other measures. She further observed Muzaid and Makya in harvesting said plants with caution.

“Why can’t Brother Muzaid just take all of them?” Ava was intrigued on why the warrior only took small bits of such plants.

Muzaid wiped off his sweat, concentration strenuous, “We just need to take as much as we need. Too much and there wouldn’t be any of them to harvest next time.”

“It is as what he says. We take some, we give some. A cycle, Young Miss.” Makya sprinkled some ground-up fish meal, from the fishes she had caught earlier.

Ava wanted to touch the harvested plants but she didn’t. It would only worry them, “Ava confirms. Is the work here done?”

“For the most part, the problematic ones were taken care of! Now we’re going hunting simpler ones!” Muzaid carefully wrapped the plants inside balls of cotton. Silver Prickle Tomato was poisonous to the touch while the cacti were hard to dislodge once stuck.

The warrior stored them in labeled earthen jars and led the girls to another area full of tall grasses. He pointed out what to search and then foraged the area. Here, they took bunch of papyrus reeds from the water’s edge, some more water chestnuts and collection of lichens.

The uses of papyrus and water chestnuts were obvious enough but the lichens? Muzaid didn’t know how useful they were but Hakeem told him to get them anyway. The trio collected tens of jins of materials, thanks to the oasis abundance and Ava’s capability to store them away.

Muzaid then led them back to Husan and Kas that had fashioned some rudimentary huts out of water palm leaves and papyrus reeds. Each of them took residence respectively, one person for each hut. They decided to pass the cold night, only to travel again by next sunrise.