“A mirage.”

The sole surviving Adept who pledged to Yuriko, Dominic Hurin, spoke up. Yuriko judged him to be about twice her age, though being an Adept, it might only be that he had advanced at that age and was much older. Or, since Spirit Binding was an entirely different Anima training system, his ageing might not have stopped at all. The dark-haired man frowned as he looked towards their destination, and nodded.

“It’s definitely not there,” Dominic repeated. “I’m from Jugen City and I’ve never actually travelled into the Desert district, but I’ve heard of these naturally occurring illusions. But don’t fear, mistress, the real oasis town should still be near it. I apologise, I’m not really that familiar with this route.”

“No matter,” Yuriko sighed. She would just have to change their heading once she saw where the oasis actually was. But for their current direction…

“We shouldn’t head straight for it,” Dominic said. “It’s bad luck.” A few of the locals nodded along, and about half of the unawakened guards.

“Alright.”

Yuriko sighed. They shifted a bit south and continued their journey. The water ran out the next day, and they had to plod on until it was night. She understood why many Haveenians wore ponchos now since they trapped the moisture and sweat underneath. The desert didn’t go all the way north to Haveena though…hmmm.

The empty barrels of water were laid out in a row under their makeshift shade. Yuriko drew out a mote of distilled Chaos from her reserves and had it float above her outstretched palm.

How did that go again? It has been a while since she needed to do something like this, but if she remembered correctly, it was to impose her Will into the mote, and nudge it to…

Whoosh!

Hundreds of Ren of water expanded from the single mote of distilled Chaos, and it almost went to waste. About half of it went into the barrels… well, a third, and the rest splashed into the sand. The water drained down almost immediately, while some turned to steam.

Gaping, Yuriko’s reaction was to flare her full Anima and she caught the water just before it sank out of sight.

“Oh, Yuri,” Gwendith giggled.

Yuriko just grunted and attempted to pull the water up, but it was harder than it looked. She didn’t have any kind of water manipulation technique and she didn’t even know how to start building on one. Instead, she tried using her Animakinesis, modified to be impermeable, hopefully, to keep what was there from sinking deeper into the sand. She pulled it up, well, everything including the sand, and had it well up next to the barrels.

The sand grew damp but she couldn’t separate the mix. Gwendith did that instead.

“Maybe we should have arrayed the barrels in a square instead of a line?” Gwendith said as she pulled the water out of the mud and transferred it to the barrels. She could actually completely separate the water from the sand, though upon taking a sip, Yuriko felt it was a little sandy as opposed to the pure water from the other barrels.

Afterwards, Yuriko focused on distilling Chaos to replace the mote she spent. The barrels of water were enough to last them another couple of days, but then, another problem arose. Horse feed. There wasn’t enough left. They could, perhaps, feed them some of the Wayfarer’s bread, but that would mean fewer supplies for their numbers. All the more reason to reach the oasis town as soon as they could.

The next day came with more troubles. A couple of wagon wheels from different wagons broke. One just needed to be replaced, but the other had its axle completely corroded with sand. In hindsight, Yuriko felt that using wheels while travelling on desert sand wasn’t the best idea, but she also knew that the dunes only covered part of the area.

“We can replace this with some kind of sledge instead,” Kassy’s partner, the wolfman Roland, said. “We’ve adventured across desert and sandy landscapes before,” he continued by way of explaining.

“Alright,” Yuriko agreed.

She lifted the wagon with the aid of her kinesis, just one side since the entire was quite heavy, and more to the point, the sand wasn’t the best thing to brace against. Oh, wait. She formed discs under her feet, stabilised her stance and lifted. Roland took off the broken wheel and replaced it with blocks while a few of the others fashioned makeshift sledges for it.

“We should do the same for the other wagons,” she added.

It took them the rest of the day to replace the wheel with sledges. For the other wagons, they simply secured the wheels so they wouldn’t spin and attached the sledge underneath. Still, it was half a day wasted.

By the next day, they were nearly out of horse feed, but thankfully, the real oasis town was within sight.

Unfortunately, it was empty.

________

Kassy of the Sha’kal Tribe scrunched her nose as she watched the ever-alluring Yuriko Davar. The woman’s…well, girl, apparently…scent was as confusing as ever. That contradiction, as well as the apparent power and shared animosity with the Federation, kept her and her family trekking across the desert in the caravan’s wake.

In truth, her stated reason for remaining, vengeance against those who’ve wronged her family, was rather thin. More than a decade of travelling where the currents of the Chaos Sea brought them had taught her that holding on to every grudge and avenging every wrong, was a fool’s errand. So why did they stay? Fifteen beastkin of the family and not one tainted by Geists that their cousins were so fond of.

Curiosity.

Roland, her partner and sometimes mate, grinned beside her.

“Don’t say it,” she muttered back. Roland simply shrugged.

After repairing the wagons, they continued on their trek, and Kassy kept her eyes on Yuriko Davar. She had the niggling suspicion that the golden-haired woman’s strength was an even match for hers. Which was a troubling thought since the family were only blessed with physical prowess.

It was an informal path or perhaps an old and outdated one. It was one that didn’t condense the might of Animus or grew a conquered spirit within. Nor one that bound Anima to outer spirits, transferring power and growth to tools and implements rather than enriching oneself. No, the family’s path was of physical mastery.

And yet, Yuriko Davar, who could clearly project her Animus far and wide, who could bend reality to her prodigious Will, was also a practitioner of physical mastery. That, Kassy could tell.

She’d observed Yuriko closely throughout the past several days. Outside of battle, her movements and strength weren’t impressive. And it was a shock when she unleashed herself. The simple act of lifting a wagon with her bare hands? No Verdianian Knight or Coalition Adept could do such a thing so casually. Perhaps the Xylarch Elders could should their Geists be of the right kind of beast.

Curiosity.

Why was this woman, this teenager who was only close to her sixteenth year, so powerful, and yet give out an air of unsullied innocence?

Her nose twitched as she caught her scent. Warm as the sun’s rays, innocent as a lamb, yet close to the cusp of womanhood. She knew that many of her kin, and even the hundred young men and women, captive and defector alike, were enthralled by that scent. Subtle, it was not.

“Do you regret being so cranky back then?” she asked Roland jokingly, who returned such a put-upon stare that she chuckled. “I know she smells nice, but mind your manners.”

“Kassy, I’m hardly an uncivilised brute,” he said mildly. In his fully human form, he had quite ruggedly handsome features.

“I know. You’re a wolf.” Kassy grinned.

When they arrived at their first destination, Kassy knew that there was trouble. Or rather, there had been trouble. The oasis village was empty, and Kassy could not smell a fresh trail younger than several weeks. The desert’s sand and winds would have worn away the trails too.

Yuriko ran into the village, her body began to radiate golden light. Her footsteps grew increasingly light, and she moved with such agility that Roland whistled in admiration.

“Follow and check,” Kassy gave the command and her family spread out. She stayed back to keep an eye on the caravan and noticed a spike of despair. It was quickly overwhelmed by the scent of fanatic devotion, however.

The oasis village wasn’t that big, with less than twenty stone dwellings. The spring was only a couple of paces wide and only six inches deep. The water was murky with sand and mud, but the smell was remarkably fresh. It had different notes compared to the conjured water, earthier.

Several trees and shrubs surrounded the oasis. There were tall palm trees that reached more than five paces high, and it was laden with brown fruit. Food. The area around the spring was thick with crops, though from the looks, and smell of it, they were already past their prime picking season and had brown and wilted.

The caravan pulled up close to the village’s edge. The other Verdanians looked wary, and the Haveenians and Kadracki looked crestfallen. Kassy imagined the village food stores would be barren as there were no signs of struggle, no scent of dried blood, fear, or despair.

Soon enough, the scouts returned and reported to her. Yuriko walked out of one of the houses and headed to the spring. Kassy walked up to their leader, who was standing in the midst of the village square. Her light encompassed the entire thing and even went into four of the dwellings. Kassy stared at the boundary, took a deep breath and braced herself. She stepped inside the light and felt immediate disquiet.

It was as if she was basking in the sun’s light, which was funny because here in the desert, that’s practically at all times of the day. But this felt different, in some strange way. She also felt as if her everything was being scrutinized, and did she imagine a caress? On her ears?

The light faded away and Yuriko addressed her without turning around. “What did your people find?”

“Nothing,” Kassy said evenly. “No food, no belongings, and no signs of struggle. What do you intend to do?”

Yuriko turned around and sighed. “I see nothing either. We’ll gather what feeds we can. And it looks like we’ll have to scavenge food..”

Kassy waved her hand and asked. “Can’t you conjure up food, too?”

She gave Kassy a weary smile. “I’ve never tried and I’ve been informed that trying to do so without intimate knowledge of what food is made of would be dangerous.”

Kassy arched an eyebrow. “Couldn’t you copy existing food? You brought water out of nothing.”

“That was from a mote of distilled Chaos,” Yuriko said sourly.

“So you’ve brought them out here to die?” Kassy asked quietly.

“No, of course not.”

“Then would you rather raid Federation villages for food? Or their army?”

“Perhaps,” Yuriko nodded. “For now, gather those crops and scour the village for what we can find.”

Kassy nodded and asked her family to do so. She noticed Yuriko asking the same of everyone else. Kassy followed her nose and entered one of the buildings. Places like this usually have cellars, but the problem was if the residents took it with them when they left or were taken. She had the feeling that the people who lived here were also shipped off by the Federation’s insane leaders.

Hmmm, if she remembered correctly, there was still a hefty amount of Wayfarer’s bread in the supply wagon. It won’t last more than a week or so, but if they supplemented it with meat hunted from the desert critters, they could stretch it out.

She wondered when the Federation troops would follow them too, that way, food and other supplies could be had from the spoils.

The cellar had nothing but dust and insects. Her eyes widened when she saw a nest of spiders in the corner, and her hand darted towards the inch-wide arachnid. The critter tried biting her, of course, but her skin was tougher than it looked. She popped it into her mouth and chewed, relishing the taste.

She could also smell snakes and scorpions, though not here in the cellar. Well, at least she and the family won’t starve. Now, she wondered what Yuriko would do. She could hardly wait to find out.