“Lava Wurm, vermis vulcanocaeta- a denizen of the underground. This fossorial creature likes to stay near areas that have high concentrations of Pyr mana where their favorite food, Embercap mushrooms, grow. They secrete a viscous fluid that is not only slippery to reduce friction as they move around their burrows, but also heat resistant, making it the ideal lubricant for wagon wheels and other moving parts such as lift pulleys, watermills and windmills. It is a very docile being and will rarely attack unless provoked by using its spit, which is not only toxic but also hot enough to cause scalding; no doubt a property of the diet they eat…” from Philiarz Oonswarner’s Bestiary for Adventurers.

“ Are you here to challenge us for our women kh’fec?” One of the blue-skinned males asked. Like his compatriots, he wore linen pants, sandy brown and tied up at his waist and ankles. His feet were bare, which drew attention to his own soles cooking on the sand. Arthur realised he was the one being spoken to―

“ What? Who― me?” He sputtered, “ Why would you think that?”

“ Hmm?” they snorted, giving their compatriots a sidelong glance with one arched eyebrow. Their hair was black and shaved low on one side. Their eyes were solid black. “ Why would I think that he says,” they chuckled mirthlessly and broke away from their would-have-been sparring partner who stepped back with amusement.

Blue, for he had not given his name, walked towards Arthur while skillfully spinning their staff. Grinning toothily they said, “ Do you not know that a bared chest is a challenge given outsider?”

“ Wait… hold on there’s a misunderstan―” he banished his dagger, but never managed to finish the end of his statement. The Djy'veli male, a young adult from their features, had already crossed the distance, setting himself into a stance that would herald a lunge, or a jab. Arthur found himself settling into something done after a nundines of practice.

He anticipated it well by watching his shoulders. The Djy'veli male set their hips with their dominant foot forward and jabbed at his face, holding one hand in front and another behind. Arthur leaned out of the way without giving ground.

In the same instant, he reached for the staff with his sleeved gauntlet, but the Djy'veli anticipated that and pulled back so fast, leaving him grasping at air. No, he didn't just pull back, he whipped it over Arthur’s hand and went from his wide open ribs. Arthur cursed as the staff stung him.

“Son of a gun!” he cursed out as he jumped back, cradling his bruised ribs. The other male stepped in again, lunging at his left. Arthur backpedalled further to the right to avoid any attempts to whip the staff around. The first blow had rung hollow against his side, but the sting was no less excruciating.

“ Why do you not draw your weapon kh’fec,” Blue sneered, throwing feints his way and goading him. Arthur shuffled sideways, keeping his dominant side facing his adversary, and refused to fall for the ruse. He had no idea what a kh’fec was, but he bet that was some slur he had no context for.

But truly, Arthur did not want to escalate things by drawing a weapon. He could use the scalemail on the sleeve to block or grab, with the gauntlet protecting his fingers and the back of his hand. He was glad they’d never taken it off.

“ I am telling you you’ve made a mistake,” Arthur hissed. “ I don’t want to fight you.”

“ Is that so?”Blue sniffed, looking past his nose as he appeared to contemplate. Arthur thought he was considering it and almost went to relax.

“ Ho, is that mockery I hear?”Hee sniped. The Djy'veli drew his staff back and swung it lower, arcing it towards Arthur’s calves. Arthur had no option but to leap clear, but the staff was a blur as it rebounded and knocked him on the inside of his left foot.

“ Guh! for the love of ― “ A burning agony erupted from his foot as the man drew back. Arthur hopped around as the Djy'veli held their staff close to their body , hiding whichever side they’d want to strike next.

Faster than Arthur could track, he lunged, striking out like a snake, by holding its centre mass as a pivot and pushing with the palm of his hand. The blow made him flinch as it grazed his left shoulder. A little to the right and he would have gotten his collar-bone. A stinging welt was already starting to form when the Djy'veli pulled back into a resting stance. Arthur’s passivity was doing him a disservice.

From the corner of his eyes Arthur saw the training grounds garner more attention. Some of the women had even come to watch, looking like they were in the middle of unhanging clothing with their laundry baskets . Arthur spotted the one who stuck out as the most conservatively dressed among the spectators. It was the young woman with crimson eyes, and she seemed flustered.

As for why the males around him hadn’t already mobbed him, he had no idea. However, thinking about it, he was getting the feeling they were having fun at his expense.

Maybe he’d misjudged things, but why the chain? Was it a cultural thing to chain outsiders in their healer’s yurts or did the misconception that he’d come for their women have something to do with it? He shut that out of his mind and concentrated on what was ahead of him.

“ If you deem this much as being below your notice, kh’fec, you are going to regret it,” said Blue with the large chip on his shoulder.

‘Teenagers’ Arthur almost wanted to scowl.

The young male seemed to inhale and then take a low stance, bringing his centre of gravity close to the ground. He held the staff one-handed and dipping low, one end held by the crook of his armpits.

The women were now cheering in their oddly animated language, as if he was about to up the ante. And up the ante he did. The silver inscriptions on his biceps and wrists started trailing blue and black wisps. Arthur noticed the same happening for the male’s legs.

While Arthur’s surprise showed up on his face, he was well on his guard. He immediately reached for his mana pool to find out how much mana he had at hand. He hadn’t even realised it was full!

“ Mayhaps I speak a language foreign to your ears kh’fec. Let me show you something you can understand,” he said from beneath hooded eyes. To say he moved was an understatement—one moment he was five metra away, the next Arthur heard the air crack like a whip towards his right.

His hand moved before he even thought of it, intercepting the staff that would have knocked into his ear. The impact rattled through his wrist with a crack of wood on metal. Pain bloomed from his wrist, but he had no time to agonise over it. The armsleeve on his right arm had saved him a bruise.

A blur flitted past his vision, jumping towards his unprotected flank before he could track it with his eyes—were they invisible or was it some sort of translocation magic? Whatever magic they used, then [Draconic Sight] could unravel them. And so he turned willing [Draconic Sight] to the fore, motes of gold glowed in his cerulean blues and his pupils became feline. His perception seemed to stretch—

Arthur saw the Djy'veli move like a silhouette trailing wisping shadows and electric blues, each step touching the sand just a moment for them to flit to the next. Afterimages of an incoming swing trailed from the back, choreographing the staff's movement. They were going to finish whatever this was in one blow—in the split heartbeat, Arthur moved. He sidestepped striking out with his sleeved arm where the blow would swing and trusted his instincts.

For the first time, he caught the staff as it materialised. He set his feet and twisted his hips. Blue let out a cry of surprise as Arthur pulled him out of his shadow and flung him over his shoulders. The Djy'veli let out a grunt as he hit the sand, bouncing on his back—and washed out. Arthur stepped forward and pointed the staff he'd snatched away at his opponents’ forehead.

“I wi—”

There was a shuffling sound as he found several weapons aimed at his neck, a sword, a spear, even a nocked arrowhead ready to punch through his artery. Arthur gulped as he felt the kiss of sharp blades on his throat. [Danger Sense] had triggered a moment too late. He dropped the staff and kept his hands still.

‘The hell did I do this time?' he thought, eyeballing the owners’ expressions. Being stared down by pupilless gazes would have been unnerving if he hadn't seen that they in fact, had a thin boundary separating their sclera from their cornea.

The Djy'veli shifted uneasily as he let his [Draconic Sight] fade. The grounds had gone silent. He looked around, everyone seemed to be worried about something. Then he realised his opponent was being tended to by none other than the hooded crimson-eyed woman. He'd been knocked out cold.

“ Scat's creek! He’s not dead is he?” he couldn't help blurting out. The thought that he'd killed someone was enough to make his stomach twist into knots—he did not foresee things turning out this way. Surely the man could take a tumble.

“ He's alive—” the woman said after hovering her open palm over his heart. Yet the Djy'veli did not move their weapons.

“ Look, I'm sure there's some sort of misunderstanding. We got off on the wrong foot. Kinda?” Arthur said, enunciating his words carefully. The cold weapons made of wurm teeth and an arrowhead almost digging against his neck were too close for comfort.

“ Uhm, take me to your leader I guess?”

“ Take him to the head healer,” the crimson-eyed girl said. “She said to bring him as soon as he woke up.”

Arthur’s hosts were rather cold at the moment. He wasn't even given a chance to be half decent before he found himself under guard and led back towards the camp. They passed the healer’s yurt, and Arthur looked at the camp with a fresh pair of eyes. Horns, skin complexions that run the full gamut of blues and pinks and something in between and tails! Somehow, he could not reconcile the extra appendage with someone that walked on two feet.

Their pointy ears must have escaped Arthur's notice, but their tails were a different level of weird. They had no fur, and they weren't even covered. Perhaps it was just his sensibilities, but he felt as though he was getting an eyeful of indecent exposure from the fleshy appendages.

Almost everyone at the camp had a tail, except, perhaps that random girl with the platinum blond hair. Arthur was in a clan’s encampment and these were, according to his recollections of Glaggis’ journal, the Djy’veli. Calling them tieflings was a no-go.

In another world, it could have been a typical village of nomads living out their lives in the desert. The yurts, tinker wagons the size of motor homes, and pack animals in the picture all fit the bill. Actually, scratch that. No nomadic tribe needed a wagon the size of a mobile home with big as hell cleats; they could well have been water wheels.

The wheels were half metrum wide and about twice as tall enough that people had tents right under the wagons. Come swamp, bog or dune, the wagons looked like the kind of thing that could roll right over without giving a quarter. The front wheels could turn about on an axle while the remainder were load-bearing on leaf springs.

The horsepower for those flatbed long wagons was none other than the lumbering humpbeast, the Orn’ghoc. What Oonwarner’s Bestiary and Glaggis’ journal failed to capture was the majesty of the creature.

The awe of standing before at least four tels of muscle, flesh, and bone of the beast could not be captured by charcoal on papyrus. Perhaps a native would have had a good reference to describe the gentle giants. However, if Arthur had to describe them in his own travel journal, he’d need to get creative.

To a fellow Earther he’d say that starting with the head and neck, late Eocene rhinos decided they wanted to become armadillos. The head was generally what megacerops looked like before they decided they wanted to be unicorns. Replacing the middle horns was a forked bony plate that protruded from right above their nose. With thick lashes in their eyes and a nictitating membrane, it could be conceived that they were used to digging, using their horns as their natural pitchforks and spades.

Elongated heads put their ears way up where a rhino’s would be. While their faces were covered in stony scales, they had a bony serrated beak instead of fleshy lips like a tortoise. The upper beak overhung the lower serrations, meaning whatever got in was not coming out.

Their necks were articulated by segments of dermal bone covered in smaller scales called scutes. Consequently, the humpbeast was capable of stretching its neck upwards because of the folds of grizzled skin hidden within.

The bony carapace of neck segments got progressively wider the closer they got to the forelegs, curving up to form a hump that gave the Orn’ghoc its humpbeast appelation. The hump, the largest articulated segment, had forked protrusions that could serve as a natural saddle horn.

Beneath that saddlehorn anchored the beast’s strong muscles that lifted its massive head, neck, and fore legs. After that, their physiology closely followed that of the armadillo.

An armoured hide covered its forequarters like a half-jacket, while more segments of bony scutes covered the middle. The hindquarters got the same treatment as the fore quarters, ending in a short, almost non-existent tail.

By the time his wardens had led him past the outer camp, Arthur had counted about a dozen of the animals. His thoughts concerning their dietary requirements were put to rest as his attention was drawn to the pasture of stiff yellowspine grass rustling beyond the camp.

There were more yurts, wagons and more clanspeople who came out of their residences to ogle the bare-chested male. Arthur felt his face flush in embarrassment and wished he could will his shirt from [Inventory Chest] onto his body.

His thoughts of decency were further interrupted by the transition from sand to greenery and cobblestones. ‘Damn, how could I miss that?’ He thought, stepping onto a flagstone path. Unlike the blisteringly hot sand, the cracked pavement was cooler beneath the soles of his feet.

Hemmed on all sides by his wardens with harpoons of bone that looked like teeth from some terrible creature, Arthur soon found himself in the shadow of the fortress. The moat served as an impromptu watering trough for the large humpbeasts , showing their articulated necks in action as they reached for the water. Alongside them were their handlers, tending to and checking large saddlebags and securing large lances to the saddles.

Barbed harpoons tied down to the sides left Arthur wondering what sort of creature they could possibly have to hunt with a mount the size of an Asian elephant. The things looked like they could reel in whales with the kind of rope he was seeing. A cold chill crawled down his spine, and it was not because they were crossing over a much cooler barbican.

The fortress was , like the rest of the structure, so old that moss had been taken to the mortar. Two of the four towers on the perimeter walls had collapsed inwards, while the crenellations atop them remained blunt nubs.

Sedimentation had also raised the overall level of the ground, overtaking the front of the bailey and the outer curtain wall. The ground was closer underneath the barbican and the gap where a spiked portcullis would have emerged was dark and empty.

The bailey, which was to say the front yard, sloped upwards, into what might have been a widow, now functioning as an entrance via a scaffold.

Four of his wardens broke away, while two pushed him onwards. They met two more hulking Djy'veli who stepped out of the dark entranceway to speak with them. Both of them were built like barrels and were brick red males with black eyes. While one kept the sides of his head shaved, the other had braided hair that ended in a knotted ponytail at the back of his head. They looked like red oni he recalled seeing somewhere.

A brief back and forth of incomprehensible words, with occasional glances thrown his way, culminated in his handing over. And these ones were none too gentle with him as they led him into the dark, one behind him and one in front. Both were armed with falchions made from the same materials he’d seen so far, and Arthur had no illusions that they knew how to use those weapons.

Wordlessly, Arthur followed the two males, braving toe stubs on cold uneven floors to where he supposed the head healer was. He had somewhat of a culture shock when he saw the hallways lit by burning torches—not magical chromastone, but torches!

Arthur supposed he was too accustomed to running around Aeskyre's castle full of the things that he wasn't divorced from modern conveniences. He even had his own chromastone lamp and he could even cast a mage light cantrip. How hard could learning the spell be? Maybe mages were not as common elsewhere, or maybe it was a tiefl—Djy'veli thing. He'd better not be heard using that appellation too.

The passageway switched into a spiral staircase, and at the first landing, they came to a stop. One of the Djy'veli rapped on the door and grunted something that sounded like kh’fec. The way it was being thrown around might have clued him in to the fact that relations between humans and this race were not exactly on pleasant terms.

“ Come!” a female voice called from inside the room. As one remained to guard the door, Arthur was shoved into a dimly lit room that might or might not have been an office of sorts. The chromastone powering the lamp was old and covered in dust, lending a muted glow.

More pragmatic than a show of eloquence, the office had sparse decorations and furnishings and a lot of bound scrolls and parchments inside recesses in the walls. The air had an aroma that was both pungent and pleasant, like someone had smoked some minty marijuana and bitter almonds.

“ Welcome outsider,” Arthur's attention was drawn to the woman sitting behind the table. The first thing Arthur noticed about her was that her eyes were gold. So far, most of the Djy'veli had silver or black orbs.

Her hair was in a mohawk braid, and it was a fiery pink. Arguably, it made the two pink horns with darkening nubs sprouting from her forehead stand out. Her heart-shaped face was cradled over tented hands , an unreadable expression on her face.

Arthur got the feeling that he was being scrutinised as he stood in the middle of a carpet rug. There were long settees to the right and left, but his welcome wasn't exactly warm.

There was no smirk, no frown or scowl on her luscious lips whatsoever. It was hard to get a read on the woman. Just as he was sizing her, she was sizing him up as well. Herein lay a woman who was born to be a huntress, if not an enchantress.

“So, you’ve finally made a recovery,” the woman drawled in accented Common. She had a smoky voice. Arthur had a sudden impulse to respond but he bit back his tongue.

“Well then,” she sighed, “I’ll be civil. No need to get all wound up like that—”

'That is not what you tell someone who's half naked,’ Arthur wanted to blurt.

“ I’ll just ask you a few questions. You just have to answer yes or no or if not, you can just state you are not at liberty to answer.”

‘She's springing a trap,’ “By all means, it's not like I could refuse If I could,” Arthur snorted. Despite setting an impassive almost contemptuous front, paranoia was setting in. The woman frowned before shaking her head.

“Have you, at any point before this come into contact with the Dwarves or Sylvani?”

"No, I have met neither of them.” he unanswered, tension coiling itself in his gut. If she was so confident about his responses, she might have had some type of truth detection skill or a truth crystal too. Was she using a skill on him? Could the obfuscation ring protect against such skills? ‘Scat, I should have gotten a user manual!’

“Are you the one who engaged a group of Dust bandits, about a day or so from the camp?”

“Yes, uhm... I think?” He answered hesitantly. .“ I can't remember the details, everything after that was kind of fuzz.”

He was half tempted to ask a question of his own but he stalled. The woman’s frown before she schooled her expression told him that would’ve raised even more questions.

“Are you a Titled, a spy, affiliated with any Titled family, or part of a guild?”

“No to all.” What’s she fishing for—spy though?’ Arthur thought.

“Do you swear that you will not in any way endanger or have designs to endanger any of the people in this oasis now or at a later time when the opportunity presents itself?”

“No...” Arthur shook his head. “ Honestly, I have no prejudice against you or your people just so you know. I…I will only respond in kind if I feel my life is endangered.”

“Mmh...interesting,” she declared as she sagged back in her chair. Arthur got an eyeful of a leather corset top with criss crossing buckles before the woman folded her hands over her bosom. More of those tribal tattoos writhed down her arms in gold.

”A lone traveller, with powerful magic, artefacts—knowledge of dwarven runecraft just happens out of nowhere, just a couple of days after a [Sygnumeric Artificer] of the Dwar and his ship passed this way—”

‘Sygnumeric Artificer?’ Arthur goggled.

The mohawk braid leaned towards one shoulder, leaving her clavicles in full view, even more so since the corset was strapless. There were freckle spots around her chest—

’ Damn' Arthur bit the inside of his cheek. ’ Now's not the time. How much of my abilities does she know?’

”Either you have no knowledge of it, or don't know that you know about it because of the geas placed on you,”

”What in the blue is a geas?” Before he could stop it, Arthur found himself saying it. The woman frowned, then cradled her chin as she looked at him from the corner of her eyes.

“One of your classes is some type of consolidated crafter that allows you to work with magitech is it not? Was that craft your creation? Do you have spatial magic? You have a second class at a lower level, don't you?”

“Ye—” Arthur bit his tongue. ‘What the hell man—What i s that all about? Hold on, she has it? No hold on just a minute—what was that just now?’

“ What do you want from me?” Arthur said, clenching his jaw. He had an inadvertent urge to just lash out. “ Did you just try to read my mind?” he asked, hissing between his teeth as though he couldn't trust himself to say what he didn't want to. He was feeling violated.

The woman snorted,“ Please, if I'd wanted to read your mind, I'd have done it while you were asleep—fortunately you just answered for me. Now then, tell me who you really are.”

“ And then what?” Arthur shrugged. The woman had to be bluffing.

”Watch yer yap kh’fec,” the hulking male rumbled. Arthur flinched as the red hulk appeared as if to take a step towards him. The woman raised an arm to forestall him—

“ It's only right you introduce yourself no?—I have nothing to go on other than thefact that you're the head-healer. So I'm guessing your people found me in the desert and patched me up…what I don't get is why you chained me up. If it's payment you wanted, you could have asked nicely instead of this roundabout way of trying to see if I can even pay up,” by the end of it, Arthur was almost breathing hard.

“You are dangerous,” the salmon pink woman said, narrowing her golden orbs.

“ How? Based on what? Conjecture about something that might have something to do with bandits? They were not on your payroll were they?—Or is it something you have against my race?”

“ You truly do not know?” The woman said, her coral pink brows flying up in surprise. That's the only read Arthur had gotten out of her so far. “ And no, I would have been the first to appreciate you for taking away a thorn in our side. Took half of them out in one blow. By race, surely you don't mean human, do you?”

Unbidden, the hazy memories after waving up in a glassed crater hit him like a slap. Arthur recoiled, turning green, and looked for somewhere to puke his guts out. He fished out one of his failed enchanting projects, and chucked into it.

“ Orn'ghoc's dung!” the woman sighed, rubbing her face.