Time Since Reckless Self-Endangerment: 4 Days 15 Hours

Goal: Save Tarquin

Nic raced across the sands, pushing himself to race against the wind as he shot from dune to dune. As he reached the crest of each wave of sand there was a moment of freefall, a brief drop, before he hit the earth again and went speeding forward.

He was free again. The open earth and the heights of the sky were his to explore.

Riding the Sandrider Blade with his feet pressed to the burning metal of the sword’s flat, Nic soared along the white-clay road of a dry riverbed. It was only when he was approaching the oasis that he caught sight of a strange cloud on the horizon.

No. Not a cloud.

A sail.

A gleam of sunlight reflected on the lens of a telescope as someone looked out across the dunes, and Nic dove off his sword and tunneled downwards to escape being seen. He burrowed into the sand, disappearing under a thin layer with a small hole carved to see through, watching and waiting as the sail turned and came closer…

They had definitely spotted him. He could feel his danger-sense following the approach of their keel.

The boat was crude. It was actually shaking slightly as it hovered above the sands, patched together from fresh-cut wood and hammered into place with heavy black nails. With the Eight-Eyed Mantle extended his senses Nic’s sight could pick out every flaw and warp in the construction.

The only well-constructed part was the figurehead. It was ancient, covered in flaking gold paint. It depicted a pharaoh looking out over the sand, arms crossed with a blade in each hand. It was so clearly not made by the same people who’d put together the crude ship that carried it.

Nic watched as they sailed past by a good margin of several dozen feet. There were three aboard - at the wheel was a dark-skinned man with a shaved head and a brace of antique flintlock pistols strapped to his chest. He wore a long blue cloak that seemed too heavy by far for the desert heat.

Captain Bahri Abay. F-Class // Sapient (Native). Weathered and grizzled by brutal war in his homeland, Bahri sees the chance for peace within Integration; for once the humans are all on one side. He fights with antiquated pistols, linked to his Mariner class.

Behind him was a girl in a torn jacket of black denim, long red hair flowing down in straight locks. Underneath the pre-Integration jacket she wore a light tunic of blue and long, flowing desert pants, held up by a plastic belt with a metal buckle in the shape of a spider.

Elisa Loucroft. F-Class // Sapient (Native). A practiced mechanic, her skill with mundane machines has been extended through synergistic shards and the Inventor class. She can quickly assemble new machines from scrap parts and infuse them with automated behaviors via aura.

The last was a short, bald man with a greasy head that reflected the sun. He wore heavy leather armor and was clearly suffering for it, daubing his forehead with a cloth as sweat rolled down his brow. Chains hung from his arms, wrapped around each thick bicep.

Marco Roman. G-Class // Sapient (Native). Formerly a low-ranking boxer and amateur competitor, Marco was imbued with a powerful Voltaic class and a Shard to match due to sheer fortune. Powerful beyond his apparent weight-class, his struggles to adapt mentally to Integration have prevented him from being marked as a contender within the System.

Nic watched as the clumsy vessel swung about, sail turning to catch the wind again. As they turned away, having appparently given up on finding him, Nic popped up from his hiding place and began to rush towards the boat’s hull. It was moving slowly now as it turned, and he managed to catch up and fling himself onto the side, sticking fast.

A second passed while he waited for a reaction - but nobody had seen him come aboard. Above, his danger sense could track them shifting across the deck, and his ears pricked as he caught bits of their conversation.

“Ah, damn. I really thought we had something there.”

“I swear to god I saw them. They were too pink, couldn’t have been an elf….”

“Fuckin waste of time.”

Nic could identify the middle voice instantly - it was the only female one of the bunch. The heavy, gruff tone of the last voice suggested it was probably Marco. Leaving the first one as the captain.

“Let’s search a little further and get back on course.” The captain continued. Nic could smell tobacco wafting from the head of the vessel where the wheel was. “Is your map finding anything, Taylor?”

“It’s odd....” Nic froze as he heard a fourth voice. He hadn’t seen a fourth crewmember, and while that might just mean they’d been below decks, his danger sense wasn’t picking up a fourth sense of threat.

Which was the most dangerous thing he’d seen from these people so far.

“This whole area is marked with danger. Maybe the highest threat level I’ve seen. It’s saying there’s a beast lair nearby.” The fourth voice was a lazy drawl.

“I’ll drop off some rovers.” The girl was coming closer, and Nic dipped underneath the ship to hide. He was inches from the sand as the ground hurtled past underneath.

Several small, spider-like creatures made of rusting scrap metal were dropped over the side. They animated as they hit the sand, all eight legs twitching, and as they vanished into the distance Nic watched them roll off their backs and begin to scramble about. Their eyes burned with a red light.

They were looking for something, and they were getting too damn close to his home for comfort. Not to mention the Valley and its unclaimed treasures.

Nic dug a flask of lamp oil from Lavhin’s laboratory out of his mystic bag. He was running low on the stuff, but it was oh-so-useful. Climbing back up the side once the girl’s threat-marker retreated from the edge, he uncorked the bottle with his mouth and painted a wide glugging stream of flammable oil across the ship’s side.

“Sunfire.” He whispered. “Come on out.”

The little lizard appeared from his tattoo, rising out of the skin to perch on his right shoulderblade. It clacked its stony claws together, and with a nod from Nic, struck a spark across the oil.

Instantly, a blaze poured over the hull and red-white flames raced up above the deck’s sides. Nic felt the heat singe his skin as alarmed shouts came from above.

As the girl stuck her head over, Nic’s hand shot up. Bracing himself - both feet wrapped in adhesive - he caught her by the shoulders and, with a huge grunt, hauled her flailing body out over the railings. She shrieked in surprise as he flung her into the sand below-

Watching her roll across the dunes with satisfaction.

He leapt up onto the deck as the other three stared in surprise. He could see the fourth one now, flickering in and out of sight. A lanky man with dark hair around his face. The captain reached for his guns. The bald man conjured lightning in a fist.

Nic stuck his tongue out and jumped for the sails. As the pistol fired- as the lightning blasted forward- they were punching holes in their own sail, missing Nic by inches as he scrambled up and balanced atop the mast. The last of his lamp oil was scattered down in a wide arc, hitting the electric-purple blaze left by the lightning and covering the whole sail in a descending drip of flame.

The captain drew his second flintlock and another thunderous gunshot rang out.

Nic dropped off the mast just in time for the shot to whistle overhead. He landed atop the bald man’s shoulders, grasped his face with an adhesive hand, and pushed him hard into the ship’s ropes. The adhesive tangled him up, and Nic dropped down as the fourth human rushed towards him.

Jagged shards of metal floated around the lanky man’s head in a halo of knives. As Nic hit the floor they hurtled towards him, imbedding themselves in the deck one by one. Nic was nowhere to be found. He darted left, dashed right, and swung up a rope.

The entire ship was beginning to tilt, and the captain was too busy fighting the wheel for a fourth shot. A jagged knife shot past Nic and ripped through a vital rope, sending the whole mast swinging about wildly.

Nic gave a little wave and flipped off the rope, over the side, and down into the sand.

As the ship hurtled past without him he watched the flaming mast tip over. Watched the men spill out and tumble into the sand, rolling like ragdolls.

And finally, watched the ship crash into a dune, the masthead splintering as huge gusts of sand blew into the wind from the wreckage.

Nic clapped his hands together. That ought to cripple their ability to get ahead of him and steal his treasures, at least for a little while.

In the long run it might sour his relationships with the humans who were camped out in the Dungeon but that was somewhat inevitable. The way the Dungeon was set up forced competition - only one person could claim the first clear bonuses. Even if Nic was above cold-blooded murder, or tried to be, he intended to play the game.

And that meant giving his rivals a very bad day now and again.

As he watched the humans scramble to save their ruined ship, he conjured a wave of sand to carry him off. Skating across the desert he blurred past the girl, and paused to unleash a trio of arrows, killing off her little metal constructs from the height of a dune. They were clearly some kind of scout. Letting them scramble about searching for him was just sloppy housekeeping.

The girl was watching him as he did. She didn’t move to stop him but her eyes blazed cold with anger, and she shouted out, “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Nic just stuck out his tongue again. Turning, he shot down the dunes.

It was good to have someone to test himself against. Even using only one of his abilities, he’d clearly had the advantage on the four Shard-wielders. They were clumsy and slow without much combat instinct, and as for coordination they had no ability to leverage their numbers and attack as a group. A prolonged fight of four against one could easily turn against him regardless - but they were helpless as long as he kept them on the back foot.

The sun was turning red and dipping towards evening when Nic arrived at the oasis. He’d buried the entrance to his home, leaving only an unremarkable wall of sand behind - as he carved it open again light fell in on the cultivation mat, the little tree of Esper fruits, and all the other things he’d left behind. Safe and sound.