Dawn arrived bringing with it a familiar scene. Kairen scowled at the window hanging in front of him, the screen unchanged from every other time he had looked at it. Despite the complexity of the structured images, the various costs and links and promises of even more power hidden away out of sight, the power it currently granted Kairen was rather easy to summarize.

Repel Monsters - level 3.

Oasis Size - level 5.

Plant Diversity - level 2.

Fertility Blessing - level 1.

Endurance Blessing- level 2.

Intelligence Blessing - level 1.

Six small powers. That was all that Kairen currently had at his command. No great armies or grand spells to conjure at his whim, but he might be able to do something about sand getting in people’s eyes. He snorted bitterly. His lack of power was made worse with the knowledge that all sorts of benefits and abilities were just waiting for him to choose them. He just needed more time.

Kairen had known that the third row of upgrades would cost more than the rows below it. He just hadn’t accounted for how many upgrade points it would take to obtain one. Advancing from the first tier to the second had happened quickly, taking little more than a week, even fueled as it was by the significance of the initial celebration the nomads had held. Kairen had expected his progress to slow down some, but with the nomads providing additional upgrade points he had expected to fly up the tiers, purchasing tier three upgrades and pulling back the veil on what lay beyond, suggestively hinted at by lines that trailed off into nothingness. It wasn’t to be.

1000 points.

It was a fortune compared to the fifty upgrade points required to unlock his initial upgrades. It was expensive compared to the three hundred point cost of the second tier, although after some basic math Kairen was grateful that the system hadn’t continued the price increase and charged him 1800 points per ability.

Really though, Kairen didn’t mind the amount so much, it was a lot, but Kairen could afford that purchase after waiting two weeks. The larger issue was one he hadn’t expected. Even if he waited, tried to stockpile as many upgrade points as he could, it wouldn’t do him any good. Kairen had a limit, a maximum capacity for upgrade points. Only once had he actually reached that limit, and the system had immediately forced him to select an available upgrade, spending those points and preventing his grasp from exceeding his reach. That incident had confirmed the limit the system had placed on him, and a limit it was. As Kairen looked at the screen he saw the small 750 that represented his current capacity. Each upgrade moved it upwards fifty points at a time, but the need to grab five upgrades before having access to the third tier represented a time and point commitment Kairen didn’t think he had, not for his current plans.

He didn't think the slavers would do anything to destroy the oasis and by extension his own strange existence. However, having his own survival assured didn’t prevent him from becoming invested in the wellbeing of the nomads who had made his Oasis their home, especially when they were threatened by the same forces that had taken so much from Kairen.

With the third tier out of reach, it didn’t take long for Kairen to go over his options for spending his points. The defensive tree was ignored as it only defended against actual monsters, not the ones in human skin. That left the physical tree and the blessing tree, as Kairen had come to think of them. Changing the physical characteristics of the Oasis and empowering the people residing therein were diametrically different, but Kairen could see benefits of both options.

Selecting a physical upgrade wasn’t immediately useful but worked well with his thoughts on getting the attention of the nomads. It was something he could only do once or twice, but chosen at the right moment might be what was necessary to convince the nomads he was real, at which point he could work on warning them about the danger they were in.

The other path Kairen could invest in was the combat blessing. The guards trained regularly and saw infrequent combat against monsters that found their way to the Oasis. Kairen didn’t know how powerful the blessing would be, but every bit of skill he could help them gain in fighting would be put to work fighting for their lives. It was the less risky option, the choice with a guaranteed minor benefit without any chance of truly changing the outcome.

That was the sticking point for Kairen. He wasn’t interested in hurting the slavers. Rather, he was, he simply wanted to help the nomads more. It didn’t matter how many enemy fighters the nomads killed if they still lost in the end. Life was cheap to Zar, both the lives of slaves and the lives of those following under him. Losing more men simply meant fewer people to divide the spoils between. There were always more evil men he could recruit when needed. For Kairen, every resident of his Oasis was precious, and each one he could keep from being killed or enslaved would be a victory worth celebrating.

Managing to warn or save the nomads was something Kairen was still figuring out, but he could focus his full attention towards thinking of a solution without wondering if there was a better answer only a single upgrade away. And speaking of upgrades…

Kairen’s eyes turned back to the screen. He had enough points saved up to purchase the plant area upgrade whenever he wanted to. It would take some time to set up the right circumstances, time where Kairen would continue to earn upgrade points. Until now Kairen had been purchasing upgrades that were directly useful. He didn’t regret doing so, but the increasing cost of each level of upgrade meant that some of his purchases had been rather expensive. Now Kairen found himself in the unusual situation of having more upgrade points than he needed, and a maximum pool smaller than he liked.

Kairen had only grabbed a single level of the fertility blessing, before focusing his attention elsewhere. Without giving himself time to hesitate Kairen reached out and purchased the second level. While the increased fertility would somewhat help Kairen by giving him more rats to command, the real benefit was the increase to his upgrade pool. For only 150 points Kairen had inched one step closer towards obtaining a tier three ability. And there were still cheap upgrades available for Kairen to grab. The plant area option was being held in reserve, but once Kairen had earned a few more points he would see about purchasing the other cheap upgrades.

If Zar took long enough to attack, Kairen would see if the third tier options changed anything, but he wasn’t holding out hope. Even purchasing the cheapest options available, it would still take another two weeks before Kairen could buy an option. It might be sped up slightly by the nomads experiencing significant events, but that wasn’t something he could count on when making plans. A small dark part of Kairen’s mind realized that the betrayal and attack by Zar would be extremely significant and would likely give him a large amount of upgrade points. It would be terribly ironic if the slavers attacking gave him the resources he needed to prevent such an attack, just too late to actually use it.

Kairen shook the thought away. It didn’t do him any good to dwell on morose thoughts like that. With his points spent for now, Kairen closed the status window and began walking around the Oasis, making note of buildings and sight lines, doing his best to calculate what the guards would be able to see once night fell.

Soon the sun had set and the stars were out. Kairen was grateful for whatever aspect of his nature that let him see more clearly in the dark than he would have been able to while still living. Normally the rats heading out to forage would have been hidden by the lack of light, but Kairen could make out enough detail to intercept them, slowly but surely gathering the intelligent rats behind him as he walked back and forth between burrows.

Kairen’s plan was simple. He couldn’t write or draw complicated pictures, and his crude attempts were likely to be dismissed as produced by the children present. By themselves, whatever he could have his rats make wasn’t enough. The trick was to set the stage properly for his next choice to make an impact.

Arrows were easy to carve in the dirt. Three lines, one for the body and two for the head easily conveyed the direction that Kairen wanted to. Even if the rats didn’t angle things perfectly it didn’t matter much. There were only so many objects in the Oasis that could be pointed towards, and none of them were close to the altar the nomads had set up. At the base of the altar Kairen had his rats construct a more complex shape, one that he spent most of his time fretting over, having the rats dig out and fill in sections of ground until it looked mostly right.

Placed directly in front of the altar was something any child could draw, something most of them had doodled in the dirt or on parchment at one point or another. It’s meaning was hard to put into words but was obvious to anyone who saw it. A frowning face stared upwards at the sky, it’s disapproval clear to all.

Under Kairen’s direction the rats continued to draw arrow after arrow pointing towards his message until shortly before dawn, when Kairen let them slip away to their burrows to rest and recover. He didn’t think anything much would come of his actions tonight. The arrows and the unhappy face were obvious enough to understand, but having them be attributed to him, having the nomads turned villagers see him as an active entity and not just a passive one wasn’t an easy thing to request. It was far simpler to think that it was a prank or joke pulled by the youth or a bored adult. It didn’t matter too much. If they brushed it off and cleaned things up Kairen could simply draw more arrows tonight, and the next night, and the night after that. Sooner or later, someone would come to the right conclusion, and Kairen would be ready, listening in. He couldn’t guarantee that someone would say the exact right words, but timed correctly growing the area of the Oasis would provide some means of support for whoever was arguing for him.

It was a simple plan, one that didn’t really risk much on Kairen’s part. The rats were more than happy to help him with his work, and he wasn’t putting them in any position where their lives were at risk. The only thing it cost Kairen was time, and that was something he was using regardless of whether he attempted to communicate or not. The main reservation Kairen had about his plan was actually succeeding. Making the nomads aware of his existence was only the first step needed to warn or save them. Once they knew he was present he still needed to find a way to let them know about the danger they were in, a far more delicate task. And succeed or fail the nomads weren’t the only ones who would learn about Kairen’s control over the Oasis. The mage Kairen was interfering with was likely beginning to suspect that some intelligence was opposing him, but if Kairen confirmed his existence to the nomads then Ramses would learn about it as well, and pass the information on to whoever might be interested. Kairen was perfectly happy not drawing the attention of slavers who had already killed him once, but it was a risk he had to take.