The barren rocky surface upon which the team was standing, expecting an ominous looking worm of some kind, stayed completely the same even after Amawas had summoned the burrow-worm.
Nothing changed.
They had expected it to be cracked or demolished revealing a menacing looking maw of some abominable creature but even after waiting for more than fifteen minutes, nothing happened.
Amawas looked at them and just when they were about to pest her with questions. From some yards away, the earth cracked open and a tiny black rabbit like creature jumped out, then it scratched behind its ear.
Isra yelped, due to the anticipation that had her on the edge, she accidently shot a thick bolt of electricity at the poor rabbit like creature, obliterating it instantly. And it died.
Amawas looked at her with stunned expressions on her face.
"Did i just kill... the burrow-worm?" She said holding a hand to her mouth.
"No way, that was not a worm that was a rabbit. The worm is still to come" Khadija said, spanking her on the shoulder lightly, her amour made a sonorous sound.
"Actually that was the.. burrow-worm... you damned lunatics" Amawas snapped at them.
"But how... why.. name a rabbit a worm, who does that?" Khadija protested.
Amawas sighed. She had lost a big chunk of her energy.
#212 walked forward and flicked Isra's head with his beak.
"How many times did i tell you guys to stop messing around," he said.
Then he casually looked at Amawas, who was still shocked by the casual outcome of the big blunder the team had just made after being deployed for mere hour.
"How long will it take us if we travel to Khandaq now?" he said
Amawas cleared her throat and stood up, with a solemn expression on her face.
'Maybe i made the wrong decision' she thought to herself.
"A week probably, ten days if we're careful of our movements" she said.
"Alright then, to Khandaq it is, and Isra watch out with your lightning bolts, i dont want you frying me midair okay" #212 looked at Isra who smiled then nodded at him.
Aatish was amusedly looking at the whole scene, she had gotten use to the inhabitants of the grove, she knew of their imperfections and that's precisely what made them feel like a close family to her.
"I'm sorry" Isra apologized to Amawas.
Amawas sighed and said
" Its fine, let's move on " As the whole team departed again, leaving the remains of the tiny burrow-worm rabbit laid on the earth, it had a weird exoskeleton attached with it.
**********
Through the inky blue sky a lonely figure shrouded in white, streaked forward, carrying a huge trail of floating ribbons behind it, they stretched for dozen of metres.
The figure somehow looked formless and with a shape of a human lady at the same time, hundreds of white ribbons danced around at its front, the supposed head, and fell backwards into a wrap of a shape, then twisted and turned at the most random of patterns.
Roop, the sovereign, had been summoned to the court along with the rest of her counterparts from all the planets; something, demanding of their immediate attention had come up.
They were currently meeting at a desolate nomad strech of land called Siccal, located in the northern most area of sehray-e-shargh, Siccal harbored absoloutely no life at all and looked extremely doom-laden, as if some catastrophe would plunge the whole rockish surface into nonexistence at any moment.
Soon hovering alongside roop, another figure appeared that looked like a tall, lanky humanoid creature but made up of pure glass, it distorted her fabrics in subtle refractions.
Roop ignored it and kept flying forward. It caught up to her and said in a sratchy voice.
"That's no way to greet an old friend roop"
Roop stayed silent, her fabrics rippling through the air behind her, she ignored it and kept flying.
The creature tried to speak again, trying to cross her path, distract her, but Roop remained uncaring.
Then she turned her head, what appeared as her head, through the ever moving fabrics, and said in a voice full of disgust.
"Get lost scum"
And shot herself forward, leaving a ripple in the air behind her.
Soon she reached a gathering of ordinary wooden chairs in middle of nowhere, placed under the open sky. The chairs were roughly put together and held no real design to themselves, there were nine of them and seven of them were occupied by ominous looking figures.
Roop joined the assembly of sovereigns and took her seat. The others seemed indifferent to her presence, except for one lady who bore remarkably realistic human features while carrying noticeable distinctions. Two horns protruded from her head, and she wore an elongated dress of blood-red fabric that flowed down her body like thick liquid, pooling onto the ground. Her light red eyes were fixed intently on Roop.
The glass creature from before descended a moment later behind Roop, distorting the reality ever slightly with its shape, It bowed his head down and said in his gritty mirror-scratching voice.
"Madam Hassad will not be able to join, she asks for forgiveness" It said.
Roop scoffed.
The one who had been staring at her then spoke, her voice, so silky that for a moment it casted a sense of euphoria on the dread of the entire gathering. Only Roop remained indifferent to it, completely unbothered.
"Such a shame isn't it"
Another creature who was sitting just besides roop, cleared its throat and said in a grim bitter tone.
"We have been decieved by that rat, before he died, he gave his core to a small human girl in his symbioses. She has successfully paired with it"
"So? Why isn't she dead yet? Are you scared of a human girl now Adawat?" The lady in blood red spoke.
That flared up already agitated sovereign Adawat even further, he lifted his arm up but before anything could happen. Roop spoke subduing the tension.
"Enough!" she said.
Adawat sat back, his eyes intently locked in a murderous gaze at the lady in red, as he continued speaking.
"I have lost three executioners going after that one girl, its not her who is the problem. Its the damned zar-e-zameen who have somehow moved past her god forsaken pledge and killed two of the executioners, ontop of that, the girl is also being protected by a Ra'ina, the butcher of Sargh. If it wasn't for Golden or Zar-e-zameen, i would've butchered them."
The mention of Ra-ina rose hateful murmers from the crowd.
"What should we do roop?" Adaawat said, after a pause.
"If the girl has inherited the cloud-core, she also has inherited the will of it and sooner than later, she will give in and come walking to us herself. It's still beyond me how Qatan managed to tame the core. For now, i want you to focus on keeping the vine as secure as you can, Zar-e-Zameen, complicates things though. We may have to talk to kehkashaan about her."
Roop then looked to her left, directly at Adawat, her ribbons slowly changing to black and grey.
"If you fail to kill Amawas again, consider your sovereignty over."