“I love you. You’ve been amazing companions over this last month. I have nothing against you. I just wish everyone else had a better view of rats.

Kairen’s minions were gathered around him, looking on impassively. The last month had seen an explosion in the rat population of the Oasis. Not only had Alpha’s children grown up and had litters of their own, but Alpha and Beta had given birth to another litter as well. Unfortunately for Kairen’s dream of hordes of loyal minions, whatever magic empowered the rats and let them see him wasn’t consistent. Despite naming all of Alpha’s second brood at his insistence, only one of them, Lambda, actually possessed the spark of intelligence. The third-generation rats showed a similar trend, where only a couple were able to see and hear the ghost child. For the moment the intelligent rats were able to keep their unenlightened brethren in line, but Kairen had a feeling that as soon as there was a shortage of food he would have a problem on his hands.

His ability to expand the Oasis and generate more types of plants made that an issue for future Kairen to deal with. Right now, his focus was on the adventurers who had visited the camp, and the problems they posed. It wasn’t that the adventurers were frauds. Kairen had seen the group at work months ago when they eliminated a sand worm that had been plaguing the village he grew up in. They had the strength to defeat monsters, and regularly put it to use. The village head had handed over the bounty on the monsters and had passed a message confirming the successful completion of the quest to the Adventurers guild. Everything had been fine until a month later, when a group led by those same adventurers had come through and torn down everything the villagers had created, killing those who fought and putting the rest in chains.

Only the nocturnal nature of his rats had stopped Kairen from commanding them to attack Zar, regardless of how futile any such attempt would be. At the very least such strange behavior might have tipped off the Nomads that something else was going on, but despite his best efforts and loudest screams Kairen had been unable to wake any of his furry friends until after the mercenary slaver had departed with his crippled pathfinder, the location of the Oasis now known to those who would take advantage of it.

It would take time for the slavers to gather their numbers and travel across the sands, time that Kairen would have to use as best he could to try and warn the Nomads and to improve his defenses as much as possible. His resources to do so were a new upgrade every few days that the nomads may or may not notice, and a colony of rats, only some of which could hear and understand him.

Kairen had learned a lot about the limits of his connection with the rodents over the last month. There was a soft limit to the complexity of instructions that he could convey to them. While they could easily understand and follow his commands to stop, head somewhere, or do a specific action, consecutive or conditional commands were hit or miss. Kairen suspected that whatever magic let the rats hear him conveyed his intent instead of his specific words. By focusing he could manage to impress a pair of orders at once, but usually it was easier to simply focus his attention on a single rat, supplying additional instructions as needed to make sure everything worked out as he planned.

Most of the commands Kairen had given were focused on helping the rats avoid detection. From warning them away from the storehouses to showing them safer sources of food. One success that had stuck with him had been early on when he had taught a single rat, Epsilon, how to use a piece of root as bait to attract prey. The ants hadn’t appealed to the rats as a food source, but the beetles and grasshoppers who made their way over to the root bait seemed tasty enough, as was a small bird that Epsilon managed to catch by surprise and bring down. Even more gratifying for Kairen was that Epsilon had learned enough of the technique to repeat it on her own the next day, without any orders or direction from Kairen at all.

The rats were intelligent, and willing to follow orders from Kairen even when he asked them to do things they wouldn’t do normally, but they still possessed a sense of self preservation. Kairen had tried to get Alpha to pose on his altar to try and develop a connection in the nomads’ minds between the rats and himself as the guiding spirit of the Oasis. Alpha had been more than willing to climb up the altar and sit patiently at night and had even resisted the temptation to nibble on the offerings when Kairen had asked. When Kairen had tried the same thing at dawn Alpha had climbed up easily enough, but had shown a degree of tension that had quickly grown as the humans approached. Before the nomads could really spot the rodent acting unusually, Alpha had bolted, hiding behind the pillar and running away before the humans could get close.

Despite his best efforts to impress the need for secrecy to the rat colony the regular rats had been seen a few times. Thankfully not in any of the human food supplies, and thankfully not in large numbers, but already the nomads were training one of the dogs as a ratter, slowly teaching him how to run his prey down and kill it. More immediately it meant that even if he could convince his rats to act as messengers the nomads were likely to take a ‘kill first, question later’ approach to any unusual circumstances he might be able to organize. That wouldn’t stop Kairen from trying. He cared for his rats, but not to the point where would let the nomads be pillaged and enslaved just to keep one or two alive. He was willing to do whatever it took to get a warning out.

An opportunity to do so came far earlier than Kairen had been expecting. The very next day the earth mage began his work of raising fortifications. Sand was a poor medium to work with defensively. While it provided earth mages with a variety of options for attacking their enemies, it usually lacked the cohesion necessary to form solid defenses, and required additional magic to force it into shape and then to maintain the structure. Ramses wasn’t interested in putting that effort in for defenses that would likely be temporary. He instead chose to work his Magic inside the Oasis, and Kairen immediately noticed when he did so.

The pain wasn’t quite as bad as when the water elementals had absorbed water from his pool and had stolen his upgrade points, but it was something that forced his way into Kairen’s awareness. The closest he could come to describing the strange sensation was that someone had grabbed his third arm and forced it behind his back in a painful hold. No damage was actually being done, but it still was an unpleasant experience. A quick check confirmed that none of the defensive options Kairen had access to reduced the effect of magic, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t push back against the caster. Filled with righteous fury at the mage and his association with slavers, Kairen stormed his way over to the construction site.

Every spell the mage cast raised the ground by a few inches, and already a knee-high mound was visible. For once Kairen was grateful for his intangibility. Instead of climbing on top of the mound he walked through it, treating the ground as if it were still flat. The effect his metaphysical presence had on the spells being performed was immediately visible. The effort of casting drastically rose, as Ramses began to sweat and grimace due to the strain.

“Is something wrong?” One of the matronly nomads asked.

“No, NO. Nothing wrONG.” Ramses managed to force out his voice trembling from the pressure. Remarkably he managed to guide the spell to completion, bringing the section he was working on to waist height before attempting to casually relax and catch his breath, his performance slightly ruined by his heaving chest.

“I just remembered I have a couple of design questions for your elders." The tired mage fabricated an excuse and made his escape, leaving a nastily grinning ghost behind. Kairen’s glee faded a bit as he considered his victory. He could slow down the mage’s progress, but given enough time the walls he was working on would still go up. And despite his dislike of Zar and anyone associated with him, it was hard to see how that was a bad thing. Sure, the Oasis would eventually belong to slavers who would use those defenses for their own advantage, but until the betrayal that Kairen expected happened the walls were a great benefit for the tribe. Additional protection from monsters was hardly a bad thing, after all. Was this truly something Kairen should be devoting his efforts to sabotaging?

Yes. If Kairen had other things he could be doing he gladly would. Once night fell, he could mobilize his rats to try and get a message to the nomads, and in a few days he could put his next upgrade towards the same purpose. Until then though, he had nothing else to do with his time. Interfering with the walls might risk the tribe to some small degree, but their lives were forfeit if things played out the way Kairen expected. Playing tricks on the earth mage was unusual enough it would hopefully draw the attention of the nomads, putting them on high alert for any of his other tricks or attempts to make contact. It wasn’t the least he could do, it wasn’t the most he could do, it was all Kairen could do, and that fact would have to satisfy him as he tried to avert a future calamity.

Night soon arrived, with poor Ramses only managing to complete a few more spells before calling it quits. Kairen resolved to pull back some of his harassment. He was worried that if he continued to interfere with every casting attempt that the mage would simply give up and laze about instead of working. Varying the difficulty would draw out the spectacle of haunting over a longer period of time and hopefully would be more noticeable as intentional instead of being written off as magic being difficult to cast in the Oasis.

It didn’t take long for the rats to come out of their burrows once the glare of the sun was gone, and while most of the rats went about the business of hunting for food, a few spotted Kairen and made their way over to where he was standing. Kairen took a few minutes to pet the named rats, feeling some of the tension leaving his body as he did so. With that emotional distance came clarity, and Kairen began to speak to his tiny audience.

“I hope you can understand what I’m saying, and not just what I want you to do. My village was destroyed by an evil slaver who took advantage of our generosity. He killed my family, put me in chains, and crippled my body before leaving me to die in the desert. Now that same man found this place. The nomads don’t know what he’s done, and don’t know what will happen to them if he isn’t stopped. So please, whatever intelligence, whatever magic, whatever compassion that you have, help me save the nomads. I have some ideas, but I’m going to need your help. Can you give it to me?"

The response was immediate and overwhelming. Kairen found his sitting position swarmed with rats as they surged forwards, each and every one eager to show him their support. His ghostly frame wasn’t capable of fully supporting their weight, but that didn’t stop them from jumping up to brush against him.

“Thank you.” Kairen whispered. “Now let’s go save my friends.”