"What's the commotion here?" Dug asked as he came back from the lookout.
"This fool played with a scorpion and got stung," Gustav explained, pointing at the man first, and then at the tiny scorpion skittering on the ground.
"Ah!" Dug shouted in fright and quickly stepped on the little critter and smashed it under his boot. In the next second his sword came out, and with a swift tap, the stung man's hand was gone!
"AAAH! My hand!"
Everybody looked at him with disbelief, and then at Dug. What the hell happened for him to cut off his subordinate's hand all of a sudden?!
"Are you crazy!" Dug shouted as the man held his hand that was now spraying blood. "That's the Great Desert Widowmaker! One sting can bring down a dozen men! Weren't you listening when we had the meeting back home?!"
"Wuwuwu…. I was drunk back then, everyone was!" the man protested amid his cries.
"Here, drink!" Dug stuffed a potion in his mouth which made the guy stop bleeding soon after. "Let's just hope I wasn't too late…"
They waited nervously for a few minutes, but it seemed the poison didn't spread too far and the man was saved.
"You are lucky the boss reacted quickly," Gustav commented as they realized he was going to survive.
"Hmmph! Yes… I was lucky!" The man suddenly started acting weirdly. He became twitchy and started sweating like mad despite the cold night air.
"What's happening? Are you feeling alright?" Dug questioned, having noticed the strange actions.
"Ah? Yes, yes! Everything is fine!"
Everything was not fine! The man's actions became even stranger as he tried to distance himself from his boss. But a minute later he was already shaking, pale, and sweaty.
"Ugh…" He suddenly started gasping for air as he collapsed to the ground, clawing at his own neck.
"Hey! What's going on?!" His teammates quickly jumped to help, but as they removed his top clothes to see better, a terrifying sight came to view. He had a swelling on his chest, and a scorpion crawling inside his clothes!
"He's been stung! It's on his chest!" They quickly killed the Great Desert Widowmaker, but the man was getting worse by the second. In just a few short minutes he became unresponsive, his face purple and swollen from poison.
"Stay on guard! There might be more!" Dug shouted as he stomped out another scorpion, and at the same time, Gerald ignited a flame in his hand.
What they saw made their eyes bulge out.
Hundreds of Widowmakers crawling from the sand and tiny holes from the rocks all around them, all coming right for them. They all madly marched at the poor dead warrior, as well as the rest of the living.
"Get back!" Gustav roared, took out a flask of Bottled Thunder, and tossed it.
Boom!
"We are in the middle of their territory," Dug realized in horror just as another person shouted in pain after being stung.
"Run away!"
The group of warriors scattered in all directions in an instant. Most of them escaped, running fast enough to avoid the slow-moving scorpions, however, just as they thought they were safe, another guy yelped in pain.
The beast got him on the calf. But he squashed it with a slap and then took out a knife, immediately cutting off a piece of his own flesh.
"Brutal!" Gerald gasped. The man wasn't playing! Such decisiveness was rare in people, or at least he wasn't used to it from back home.
He was currently floating about a meter off the ground and staying far away from the scorpions. He then quickly gather his magic and started spewing fire all over the ground, like some airborne flamethrower.
The Great Desert Widowmakers were nearly instantly fried, their little bodies exploding with popping sounds. It sounded like someone was making popcorn!
"Who's…? Gerald?! He's using fire magic!"
"No, look! He's flying!"
Seeing the danger go up in flames, the group of warriors stopped and cautiously approached. Despite the scorpions being quickly taken care of, there was nothing they could do for those that were stung.
No potions or medicine could heal them fast enough to counteract the absolute destruction the venom made on the human body. Worst of all, it worked in many ways.
First, it paralyzed the nerves, hence the low pain, then the flesh there started dissolving, opening wounds. At the same time, the blood became thin and wouldn't stop flowing no matter how you tried to stop the bleeding, and the victim would internally bleed to death in less than an hour.
But that was the least of their worries since the infected areas would swell wherever the venom spread, attacking lungs and heart in a matter of minutes, leading to suffocation or a stroke.
"Damn it!" Dug cursed as he held a dying brother in his arms, feeling helpless and angry. No antivenom existed that could counteract the Widowmaker's venom.
The best course of action was to remove the affected area as quickly as possible and then hope that a small enough dose of the toxin entered the bloodstream that a person would be able to survive it.
Other than that, nothing helped. Nothing except the Elixir of Life, but that wasn't something just anyone could get their hands on. And even if they did, it was worth much more than the life of a commoner.
Just like that, in a moment of carelessness, they lost a few good men. After experiencing no dangers throughout the day, their defenses were lowered, and just as they were taking a short rest, disaster struck.
Now they finally realized how dangerous the Great Desert truly was. Everything here was trying to kill them! It didn't matter if it was the ground beneath their feet, the sun in the sky, or the animals that inhabited this cursed place.
There was silence as the warriors dug shallow graves in the sand and placed the dead inside. Most likely they would be uncovered soon, serving as a meal to wandering desert beasts.
But they couldn't afford to wait any longer. Time was of the essence as they had to reach the canyon by tomorrow or the deal would crumble. Reaching the last sighting place of the elusive Phoenix would be but a pipe dream by then.
Suddenly the sands shifted as a slight tremor was felt through the ground.
"Hm? An earthquake?"
Dug was suddenly back to his alert state, but his mood was even worse. "Oh god, please no…" He quickly went back to the piece of exposed bedrock where they set camp and placed his ear to the ground.
Soon his expression soured and he cursed a few times, though no words came out of his mouth.
"Gustav, take out the worm repellant, quickly!" he said.
The man looked at him in confusion, "Worm repellant? I thought you were joking…"
Dug became deathly pale in a second, even paler than the moonlight already made him. "You… Did you not buy it?!"