An arid wind laced with sand blew across the landscape. Any onlooker would be convinced from a passing glance that the region before them was uninhabitable, with neither the faintest signs of flora nor fauna for miles around. Yet, undeniably, it had been conquered, regardless of how unbelievable of a fact it was. The Khazmani had exploited the desert's many treasures for millennia--most importantly of all the rare flowers and herbs which had adapted to the region's overheated climate, which were used to create alchemical products of legendary repute. Complex alchemy, however, was not the Lunar Dominion's only specialty Many of those self-same herbs were instead ground to create flavourful spices, and the flowers processed into colourful dyes. Closer to the Tor-Khazmani border, its citizens raised the native silkworms of the western lands to spin fine silks used for clothing and other textile products.
To say nothing of its deeply welcoming and celebratory culture, the Lunar Dominion was inhospitable only in terms of its arid climate--too bothersome and dangerous for travellers, especially Onda, who were accustomed to the frozen wastes of their homeland. The desert had forced upon them a uniquely communal way of living, with fewer disconnected villages and more large settlements. The largest of which, Anan-Daje, served as the country's capital and seat of the illustrious Shah Emir Bin-Amashiri, who had ousted the previous Shah during the blood-soaked Five-Star Rebellion, during which the Khazmani resistances were slaughtered in the thousands by the more traditionalist imperial supporters. As the conflict came to a close and the despotic king was dethroned, efforts were made to mend the country's fractured relationship with Tor, and the Lunar Dominion benefited from great economic wealth as it began to once more openly trade with its long-time neighbour.
Along the shimmering dunes, a silhouette crept towards the far horizon with the sun at its back, draped in a grainy shawl. Desert nomads were not uncommon, but for one to travel without ample supplies or a mount of some kind was completely suicidal. A Khazmani would know better than to risk their life journeying aimlessly across the desert, but that individual was no Khazmani. Though they walked on two feet and gazed with two eyes, the average dweller of the dunes did not sport a pair of rabbit ears. Like many other nations, the Lunar Dominion rarely hosted Beastkin--the people were seen as a strangely exotic sort, though the average Khazmani certainly had more in common with a Beastkin than the average mainlander.
Pale had only recently experienced her first bout of magically-assisted travel, and still struggled to comprehend that she had leaped a month's journey in an instant. The rubicund deserts of Khazman had only passed her mind a handful of times throughout her life. Rarely were her people concerned with the world beyond the Steppe, but having travelled beyond its borders, a certain curiosity had taken hold of her. Sir Lotte--and by extension, King Granda, had entrusted her with the task of rallying the Lunar Dominion against Demonkind, and had helpfully dropped her off by the border using a Gate, leaving only a sweltering stretch of nothingness between her and the city of Anan-Daje.
"Hot…" She sighed, "Much too hot…"
To the north, things were generally colder, and the winters moreso--a consequence of the Steppe's close proximity to Hena. The blinding sands of the dunes surrounding her and the beating rays of the sun, even so close to setting, made for a uniquely tiring experience. Knowing full-well that Barion and Manyu had been granted magical items to aid them in their own pursuits, she wondered if it would have been more productive to ask for supplies more meaningful than a pack filled with camping supplies. For hours, she had seen not a soul--not even a spider slinking beneath the sands. Soon, the sun would set completely, and touched by the stars, the desert would transform into a freezing tundra.
"That sorcerer… is he trying to kill me?" She wondered.
Her train of thought was interrupted. As a hunter of the Steppe, Pale's senses had been sharpened to the point of absurdity. Her hearing, amplified by both her ears and natural training, was sensitive enough to detect a kind of vibration in the sands--the consequence of something moving, or perhaps burrowing, beneath her feet. As seconds passed, the vibrations only grew in intensity. Her ears twitched as a sound made itself known. A shifting, unravelling sound.
"...Something's here."
Almost in response to her words, the sunken valley of sand behind her exploded like a geyser, and from out of the discoloured haze emerged a pallid, elongated creature--a kind of gargantuan worm with leathery skin and a circular, protruding mouth of teeth.
"A Demon!?" Pale exclaimed.
As the beast turned in the air and plummeted back into the sands, she retrieved her bow with a practised instinct, notching an arrow without even registering the movement of her arms. Her gut feeling as a hunter instructed her to wait for the creature to surface yet again, though she couldn't help but feel as if her lowly arrows wouldn't be at all effective at penetrating the worm's hide.
The vibrations began again. Soon, the monster would strike.
"Mm…" Daring to close her eyes in thought, she paused, "...Alright. Come on, then."
Onto her back the bow retreated. Raising her hands--one of flesh and one of silver, she took a fighting stance, digging her heels into the burning-hot sand, and awaited the creature's move. Responding to her inaction, the vibrations grew, and in another instant, the worm once more burst forth from the dunes, travelling in an arc as it flew through the evening sky, intent on catching Pale within its insectoid maw.
She watched it, unmoving, with nothing more than her fists at the ready. Whether Demon or plain monster, it was certainly a force to be reckoned with, surviving in such an inhospitable land. As it fell upon her, Pale's hands rose up to catch the engorged lips encircling the creature's salivating gums, feeling her weight being pushed down as its tremendous size careened towards the ground. Just as her wrists began to buckle, the creature's momentum ceased, and like a lead weight, its oblong form crashed into the sand, mandibles tirelessly seeking the morsel holding it back. Unable to move in any reasonable capacity with its burrowing over and done with, Pale moved her silver arm to grasp one of its curved fangs, wrenching the protrusion from its cavity and exposing the tender nerves beneath.
As the worm thrashed in her one-handed grip, struggling to submerge itself in the dunes once more, Pale grunted as she stabbed the razor-sharp tooth into its lower jaw from beneath at a queer angle, sinking the unwieldy weapon as far as it would go into the creature's fatty underside. Loosening her iron grip on its gums, she clasped one hand in another, grasping the tooth like a dagger before running along the worm's side, tearing a wide incision through its flesh as she did so, mixing spurts of warm blood into the sand beneath them. As its peeled-back head began burying itself again, Pale pushed her metal arm towards the wound, intruding upon the beast's sickly innards, and indeterminately ripped from its body a rubbery band of pallid organ tissue, before the worm's body disappeared beneath the dunes once more, leaving sticky masses of congealing blood in its wake.
"Hah…" She sighed, "What a troublesome thing…"
"--! ------ ----!"
"Wha-"
Turning her head towards the unintelligible string of words, she bore witness to a peculiar sight--upon the ridge of a nearby dune leading up from the valley in which she stood, a camel had somehow appeared, and upon its back rode the silhouette of a lanky fellow, head wrapped in a concealing turban.
"...Who are you!?" Splitting her attention between the worm and the traveller, she asked that question without once considering if the two of them could even communicate.
"---- ---- ---- -------!" Again, the fellow responded in another language, before reaching for a satchel at his waist and retrieving something from its confines, "----, --- ----!"
Tossing a spherical object towards her, Pale's first instinct was not to wonder what it could have possibly been, but to snatch it out of the air. Briefly examining it, the object appeared to be a bomb of some sort--the kind she had seen peddled by some of the more esoteric Beastkin tribes during Summits, but not quite as amateurish in its design. Its shell appeared to be made of some kind of pliable resin, and if she shook it, a sound like something rattling around could be heard from within the sphere. More importantly, there was no fuse.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" She wondered.
"------ ---!" The man on the ridge shouted something at her, opening his mouth and pointing a finger towards it repeatedly, "----- -- -- --- ----- -----!"
"Eat it?" She theorised, "...No. That's a terrible idea."
Make the worm eat it. That was a much more agreeable proposition. Whether it was explosive or not, she could at least figure out that it wasn't the sort of thing one would want to find in their mouth. Just as the thought occurred to her, the vibrations began again, only instead of leaping from the sands, she turned her head in time to see the worm breaching the surface, swimming through the dunes like a fish in water. With blood leaking from the wound on its underbelly, it charged at Pale, intent on swallowing her in a single motion.
With a clumsy motion, she threw the sphere underhanded, such that it was bowled across the smooth desert sand towards the creature. Ignorant of the apparent danger, or simply too incensed to care, the worm greedily allowed the object to enter its frenzied gullet, barely stopping as it ceaselessly continued its charge.
"What was that supposed to do!?" Pale lowered her stance, "Not that it matters. I'll just-"
She was thrown off her feet--a ringing sound accompanying her complete loss of hearing as a powerful shockwave knocked her to the ground. Just before sitting up, she could see clumps of something--discoloured skin sticking to muddy-red sinew and fragments of bone, careening over her head. Where once there was a worm, a gaping sandslide had taken its place, peppered with chunks of gristle and coated with blood. As viscera rained down around her, Pale's hearing began to return, though the explosion had disoriented her somewhat.
"Ugh…" She placed a hand to her forehead, "What kind of bomb was that?"
As she stood, the man atop the ridge had descended from his camel and begun to slide clumsily down the dune. He was wearing a long robe of white cotton, and upon his face were a pair of amateurish spectacles which didn't quite fit correctly.
"--- --- ----? ---- --- ----- --- ---------- -------." Holding out a hand towards her, he greeted Pale properly with a smile, "--, - ------- --- ----- -------- ---- --- ---- ---------- --, ---- --?"
"I'm sorry, but…" Taking his hand and rising to her feet, she shook her head, "I'm not familiar with the language of these lands."
Pausing for a moment, the man clasped his hands together.
"Uh…" He stammered, raising an arm to point towards the dune he had just descended from, "C-Camp… --- -- --- --- --? Home?"
"There's a camp nearby?" She inferred.
"---, er- yes." He replied, "--- - ----- ----- ----, --- -- ------- --... uh, ---- --- --? Speak. -- ----- --- -------- -- --- Beastkin."
"You're offering help. I understand that much." She nodded, "Lead the way, if you would be so kind."
Truthfully, it was her first time encountering a language barrier of any persuasion, but it was simple enough navigating the cultural divide between them with simple hand gestures. Leading Pale back up to the dune, the bespectacled man was kind enough to offer her a drink from his canteen, and shortly afterward, the two of them were on their way to parts unknown. Whatever his intentions were, he was at the very least appropriately equipped for desert trekking, and seemed to understand where he was headed better than Pale ever did.