Small motes of sand swirled through the air, carried by a soft breeze. Most people were simply glad for the wind and the fresh air it brought, their clothes covering enough skin for the sand to be ignored. A few grandmothers warned of an oncoming storm, but their children and grandchildren simply smiled indulgently. Sandstorms had come to Zaros before, but the barrier that surrounded the Oasis meant that the people inside the town were hardly touched. It would get dark once the storm started blotting out sunlight, but with a torch or lamp it was easy enough to go about one's business anyway. The rats in the town had more sense, and the few on the surface quickly abandoned their work or rushed to complete it when their master deemed their task of utmost importance. For Kairen wasn’t a human or a rat, with their priorities or senses. Once a human, now a ghost, but more and more he was seeing himself as the Oasis itself, becoming more integrated and attached to it. Occasionally he still had dreams of finding a way to break his boundaries, to go explore the world, or even to somehow achieve resurrection and return to his old life, but those thoughts were mostly idle dreams nowadays. With his rats acting as translators he had the human connections he had wished for when he first died, and those same humans needed him to help them, even if they didn’t fully understand what his help would cost.

The ghost was now constantly struggling against the rituals Mr. Mage had begun. Each successive ritual had increased the pressure Kairen was under, but still he did his best to resist, putting points into his various abilities as infrequently as possible. Slowly but surely the Oasis was being shaped, and Kairen knew that eventually he would need to select some of the horrendous fourth-tier options that would begin to turn the unwilling prisoners in Zaros into true slaves. The one upside was that his resistance had been constant enough that neither Mr. Mage nor any other official in Zaros suspected sabotage. After all, it wasn’t like Oases were common enough for them to have practical experience with shaping them to their will. The intelligent rats had caused more of a stir, especially when Kairen had convinced them to spend their lives helping the slaves and nomads escape. Seeing the rats coordinate and act with humanlike intelligence meant that Zar spared no effort in exterminating any rat he could get his hands on. Combined with the many rats who died during the fighting it made for a heavy price paid in blood, but it had needed to be paid. Kairen had apologized to the rats once things had calmed down, but a bit of nonverbal discussion revealed they bore him no ill will. Individual rats might have their own identities, but they were not humans, and were more than happy to put the will of the collective before their individual desires. Usually, that simply meant providing food to those desert rats which could not feed themselves, but it also meant that Kairen had the rat’s absolute trust when he asked them for their aid. For all that the rats were intelligent and learning more every day, they still trusted Kairen to have a better understanding of the big picture, backed up from those early days of him having them draw pictures in the sand. Kairen was humbled and awed by that sincere display of trust, and he wasn't the only one.

Before the revolt, the slaves had had a positive opinion of the rats, who Kairen had arranged to steal food for the slaves and had been the primary translators between the ghost and the humans. But after the slaves were freed and heard tales of just how many rats died to tip the scales in the fight, they began to see the desert rats in a new light. These rodents were not simply pets, not simply tools of an invisible master, but were beings worthy of respect and consideration in their own right. The slaves' attitude towards the rats had shifted from grateful tolerance to genuine appreciation, an emotion that was both reciprocated and conveyed through rudimentary writing. Trapped underground in the hidden cave system the rats had conducted, the escaped slaves didn’t have much to occupy their time while they waited for the right moment to reveal themselves. Sources of light were hard to come by, and conversation was the most common way to pass the time. While the rats could technically leave at any time, the slavers were far more vigilant than they had ever been before, and most of the rats were content to simply wait out the crusade for vengeance, feasting on their stores of stolen food and hanging around the humans, slowly improving their understanding of language as they were conversed with and not simply used to write messages for Kairen.

Kairen loved observing the growing camaraderie, but as the only being able to freely spy on the slavers he found himself spending most of the time on the surface, listening to rumors and reading reports, hoping for something that would change everything.

That soft wind, ignored by so many, was the mysterious quantity that Kairen had been waiting for. It was rare for him to be able to interact with the world, and so the fact that this wind was able to reach him told him that it was something special. A quick signal had the slaves and rats scrambling to get ready, donning scraps of armor and padded cloth and making sure the few improvised weapons they had were close at hand. The rats began excavating a tunnel to the surface, Narrow at first, but wider and wider as more rats arrived to lend their aid.

Kairen noticed all the activity, but let it pass by. He had been the one to make the call, and that meant he had to know what was happening and what the best time to act would be. Kairen knew that this could easily lead to the deaths of everyone following him, but he also didn’t think their food supplies would last all that much longer. A great supply of food for a colony of rats didn't go nearly as far when it was repurposed for feeding a much larger group of humans. When faced with the choice between letting others starve or going out fighting, Kairen knew this was the better choice, he just hoped for a miracle.

It wasn't a miracle, but Kairen soon realized that there was more going on than just the breeze. Tied into the Oasis as he was, Kairen had always had a vague sense of his home, and now he had the strangest feeling that he was moving. It felt like he was sliding sideways, and slowly sinking at the same time, but neither of those things was physically happening. People were walking around normally, and the precarious piles of products the vendors had displayed for sale were still haphazardly standing. Kairen took a moment to try and orient himself, and then walked towards the edge of the Oasis in the direction it felt like he was sliding towards. Placing his hand up against the barrier, he looked out into the desert, hoping to see what could possibly be causing this strange feeling.

It took a couple of minutes of waiting, but soon Kairen could see the sandstorm the grandmothers had warned about approaching from the direction he was looking in. More surprising was the line of camel and horse riders just ahead of the storm, barely outracing it as they sped towards the Oasis. They clearly weren’t a slave caravan returning from a raid, and while the possibility remained that they were customers coming to buy some slaves, Kairen didn’t think that was likely, and neither did the guards.

Already the call to action was raised, and mercenaries were hurriedly putting on their equipment while making their way to the defensive fortifications. Behind them, Kairen saw the few slaves out and about on business rapidly being hurried back to their homes. It seemed the slavers had learned from their last fight and didn’t want any slaves in a position to cause havoc or tip the scales of the fight. Unfortunately for them, Kairen had a whole force of armed slaves just waiting for his signal. Still, he held off on giving it. He wanted to see how well these strangers would fight, or if they would simply negotiate their way inside before giving the call to action.

Closer and closer the riders came, completely ignoring the various calls to stop that were yelled from the walls. With the storm behind them, that was somewhat understandable, but the refusal to answer was a step too far for some of the more on edge guards. Kairen didn’t see who fired the first shot, but soon a haphazard volley of arrows was arcing its way out to the strangers, who split to ride around the attack, pulling out their own bows at the same time At their commanders signal they loosed, only for most of the arrows to be deflected by the barrier and its arrow deflection upgrade. Cursing his luck, Kairen dashed away from the wall, making his way through the city and underground.

“There are some people attacking the walls from outside. Everyone has been sent into their house for their own safety. Go up, but stay quiet and don’t act until the right time."

Kairen knew that for some of the slaves, waiting would simply be impossible. Armed and ready to fight back, they wouldn’t want to simply hide on the surface but would seek out and attack the closest slaver. With the fight going on and the storm picking up Kairen hoped that they would either be unable to find anyone or that their actions would go unnoticed, but he wasn’t about to count on it. Instead, he focused his attention on his dear rats, sending them to the various gatehouses to try and disrupt things. His rats wouldn’t be able to open or close the gates by themselves, but they could certainly make a nuisance of themselves at the right moment.

Satisfied for now, Kairen returned to the wall, only to blink in surprise as he saw a few arrows make their way over the wall, rattling against the stone while one lucky shot managed to impale itself in a poor man’s bicep.

While Kairen had gotten the upgrade that would deflect arrows, it seemed like it truly was an upgrade, not its own separate thing. The storm had fully arrived at this point, and Kairen could see great sheets of sand being pressed up against the barrier. The barrier did what it could to keep the storm out, but it was simply too strong, and some wind and sand snuck through. More importantly, it meant the barrier didn’t have enough energy to stop all the arrows that the attackers were firing, and Kairen could see that more than a few of the defenders were sporting a wound already. A judicious application of some healing potion kept them in the fight, but Kairen could almost feel the morale dropping with every shot fired. A few of those present with bows fired back, but their shots were simply swallowed up in the shifting storm, with no way to tell if they had hit anything at all. It seemed unlikely, as the shots coming in were continuing unabated, a constant pitter-patter that slowly wore away at the defenders.

DOOM! With a sound both heard and felt, the barrier buckled for a split second, letting in a wave of sand that left the mercenaries spitting and rubbing their eyes. Kairen didn’t need to worry about those issues, but whatever had hit the barrier had left him with the beginning of a headache.

DOOM! The barrier was struck again, and Kairen fell to his knees from the spike of pain. Those hits had hurt, and yet they also left Kairen confused. Something was obviously attacking the barrier, but Kairen didn’t know what it could be. The barrier was upgraded to stop arrows and storms and sunlight, but almost everything else could simply pass right through, even slaves no matter how much Mr. Mage pushed for that specific upgrade. In fact, the only other thing that Kairen could think of that interacted with the Barrier was monsters.

DOOM! A third strike broke the barrier, sharply increasing Kairen’s pain and letting whatever was out there through. Now free to strike wherever the storm surged forwards, quickly covering the city even as its intensity died down some.

WHUMP! Just because the monster-specific barrier was down didn’t mean whatever was out there was free to roam about the Oasis. First, it had to get through the solid gate, as well as the group of soldiers behind it that was slowly gathering. Word had quickly spread that this was the only monster present, and guards were quickly pulled from other stations on the wall to give the slavers enough fighting power to drive it off. Or, as one pessimistic fighter muttered, enough fodder to keep it in one place until the real powerhouses could come.

The gate shuddered again under the assault of the monster and everyone gripped their weapons tighter as the door began to splinter. Finding the group of waiting rats, Kairen quickly got them in position to cause as much chaos as possible.

With a thundering crash, the gate broke open, one half coming completely free of its hinges and falling down to the ground with a final sounding thud. With the gatehouse providing some cover from the storm, the monster was revealed for the first time.

It was a giant scorpion, with oversized claws on its front pincers and three separate tails waving behind it. The main body came to three feet off the ground, and it was large enough around that a dozen men could have eaten dinner off its back, were it not for the prehensile stingers that slowly waved overhead. Its eyes gleamed with the intelligence of a beast that had lived for centuries, even as one eye slowly dripped ichor from around an embedded arrow.

Seeing their chance, the guard captain present gave the command. “Attack!” At his guidance, every fighter present surged forwards, only for their charge to be halted in its infancy by a sudden onslaught of bites to ankles and calves. None of the bites were serious or even that painful, but the distraction broke up the charge enough that the slavers met the scorpion in a staggered wave instead of a coordinated strike. While the size and power of the claws were immense, clearly what the scorpion had used to break into the Oasis, the monster preferred to use them for defense in combat, keeping the various fighters at bay while it went on the offensive with its stingers. All three stingers seemed able to reach far beyond the point where they should have come to an end, and whatever motivating force they had was enough to propel them through most of the shields or armor pieces that stood in their way. A great cheer went up from the soldiers when a titanic blow from an axe was enough to cut off one stinger that had overextended, but their celebration was short-lived. The scorpion stopped its assault for a moment, but it didn’t seem inclined to retreat, even with the loss of one of its tails. Instead, it simply waited patiently, taking some small wounds from the archers and slingers present even as the injured tail shriveled and fell off completely. Not long after that, Two new tails sprang up from the same location, shorter and smaller than the other pair, but still wickedly sharp and fully capable of striking. Satisfied with its new weapons, the scorpion once more began to press forwards, and the battle quickly picked up pitch.

As fascinating as the battle was, Kairen knew that there had to be more going on. He hadn’t seen any sign of those riders recently, not since the scorpion had appeared, and the slaves were still waiting for his commands. Before he met up with them, Kairen quickly sped through the city, checking the rest of the entrances to give himself a fuller picture of the current situation.

It turned out that the guards fighting the scorpion were unlikely to get any reinforcements. Not because other monsters were attacking the rest of the guards, but simply because they were already dead, killed by a large group of nomads that had entered the city. Kairen recognized a few of them from the previous day of fighting, but the rest were new and seemed to have enough identifying symbols to be considered six or seven different groups.

Kairen was grateful that the nomads hadn’t completely forgotten about the rest of the slaves that hadn’t managed to escape that day, and he was even more grateful when he saw just what the nomads were focusing their energy on. Instead of fighting the guards, the Nomads had simply taken over a single entrance. Once they had entered the city their focus had turned from fighting against the guards to evacuating as many people as possible Kairen saw that most of the people they were rescuing were slaves, but the nomads didn't seem to discriminate. Anyone who didn’t fight them was quickly escorted out of the city, while anyone who did try and fight back was put down with prejudice.

While Kairen knew that more than a few of his rescued slaves were looking forward to a fight, he realized that this was his best chance of getting them out safely. Neither Zar nor Mr. Mage had made an appearance in the fight yet, and more than a few of the better fighters were probably still in the palace instead of having been sent to the walls. None of the slaves would be able to fight back against those human monsters, but Kairen had a hunch that even those powerful fighters would struggle against the giant scorpion. With his orders conveyed, he once more made his way back to the west wall to watch the fight, only to pause while still several houses out. The scorpion now had a total of seven tails, shorter and smaller than it had originally had, but still long enough to outrange the melee fighters and strong enough to inflict large amounts of damage. More than that, the increased number of stingers and the rapidly diminishing number of fighters meant that it was unlikely the slavers would get any more chances to cut off additional stingers, for all the good it had done them. A few scratches on the main carapace were the only other progress that the fighters had made, but none of the large ones were deep, and the loss of ichor through the smaller cuts was negligible.

Already the survivors began to give way, not wanting to give the monster free reign, but not wanting to get in range of its deadly attacks. The scorpion didn’t seem to mind the extra space, and instead of charging after the soldiers, instead turned its focus on the empty houses nearest to it. Once again it brought its large talons to bear, and soon the closest walls were demolished, the weight of the roof warping the other walls into unusability as it collapsed. At the same time, Kairen felt a strange pain like heartburn, or perhaps the prank beef jerky his father had bought him once. Pulling up his information screen, Kairen was shocked to see that his points had gone down, without him buying anything. It was a first, and Kairen had a sudden suspicion that there was an underlying reason that monsters attacked Oases other than them just being targets of opportunity. A pulse of pain from his earlier headache had Kairen check his barrier upgrades, only to realize that they were gone. The destruction of the barrier that the scorpion had caused had somehow been enough to tear away its power, and that power was likely what was fueling the Scorpion’s rampage. Turning his attention back to the beast, Kairen watched as the cuts it had received over the course of the fight slowly healed up. Whatever energy it was stealing from the Oasis was giving this monster a degree of regeneration that would make defeating it nigh Impossible, and Kairen was grateful that the nomads were putting all their focus into helping people leave, even if they had been the ones to lure the monster here in the first place. A niggling fear in the back of Kairen’s mind worried what would happen if the scorpion wasn’t driven off by Zar and his elites. Would the monster simply continue destroying things until there was nothing left? If so, what would happen to him as a ghost? He was clearly tied to this place, so would he simply start over from scratch or would he die again once the destruction of the Oasis was complete. There wasn’t much Kairen could do either way at the moment, and he was far more willing to die again for a good cause than he had been the first time around, especially if the scorpion killed Zar first.

Fortunately for Kairen, it looked like he might just get his wish. Zar had shown up, accompanied by Mr. Mage and the rest of the stronger slavers, and Kairen watched on as they demonstrated the capabilities of a lifelong adventurer and fighter. The viperlike strikes of the scorpion’s tail were constant but never seemed to land, the fighters either blocking or swaying around every poisoned stinger. Their attacks back did little to harm the armored monster, but Kairen had seen each elite hit much harder and realized that they were simply testing the limits of the monster before fully committing to any one attack.

Mr. Mage might have been mostly focused on ritual magic, but his skill with the arcane was still impressive, Kairen watched as the mage sent a half dozen spells flying in rapid succession, each one a different element as he tried to figure out the best strategy for bringing the monster down.

The scorpion wasn’t content to simply let the fighters toy with it though, and revealed that it had been holding back earlier as well. With a sudden snap forwards one of the stingers launched an attack. Only this attack was not aimed at any one fighter, but instead, a large sword that was slowly returning from attacking a leg joint. Instinctively the fighter turned his blade to meet this new threat, only to realize too late that that was exactly what the scorpion had wanted. The instinctive strike was quick and true, and the stinger easily separated from the tail, but it hadn’t lost any of its momentum. Flying forwards quickly, the stinger continued far past the range the tails had demonstrated, only coming to a stop when it was fully buried in Mr. Mage’s chest. Next to him Rao quickly decided that discretion was the better part of valor, especially once it became clear that the monster simply was too large and too durable for any of his earth manipulation abilities to do much against it.

With the monster's trick revealed and its threat level compensated for, Zar and his followers stopped holding back. It didn’t take long for them to surround the scorpion and the blows began to rain down. The entire bouquet of stingers was soon cut off once more, with the goal of eventually reducing each individual stinger to a small enough size and power level to be ignorable. Meanwhile, the scorpion had lost two of its legs to powerful strikes from the sword wielder it had co-opted for its unique attack, the man’s guilt driving him to push past his limits. Taking serious damage from all sides and with its tail rendered almost inoperable, the scorpion began to squeeze its claws, ignoring the fact that there was a thick layer of crystal buildup surrounding them.

First one, then the other pincer managed to break their crystal surroundings, sending shards flying everywhere. Most simply embedded themselves in the walls or rubble of nearby buildings, and a good portion ended up inside the scorpion, the speed and sharpness of the shards enough to penetrate its shell. Even with all those missed shots, enough of its emergency projectiles had managed to hit Zar and the other fighters. Only one of them had been hit in a fatal location, but all of their injuries combined were enough to cost them the edge they had been relying on.

Injured and worried about being killed by the monster, the weaker fighters began to break away, their morale broken and their fear of their cruel leader overruled by their terror of the deadly monster in front of them.

“Cowards!” Zar yelled, but he was too busy fending off a constant stream of tail strikes from the scorpion to do much more than curse his supposed allies. Even then he might have been able to disengage from the fight and reset at another location with more support, but for the interference of a third party. Falling out of the sky, an aging rat landed on top of Zar’s helmet with a light clank, and immediately began to move, maneuvering around to cover the slaver’s face and be as big of a distraction as possible. The fight was chaotic, but Kairen could still recognize the greying coat of his first follower, Alpha. The old rat might not have been as young or as fast as he once was, but he still had the energy needed to move around, and he considered all of the other rats in the Oasis his descendants, whether they came from his lineage or not. Even though the rats had willingly spent their lives to aid Kairen with his goals and desires, that didn’t take away from the fact that those rats had still died, and Alpha had seen his chance to take back his pound of flesh. Mostly metaphorically, but somewhat literally as his claws scrambled away at Zar’s eyes. It only took the mercenary a second to reach up and snap the small animal’s neck, but that second of distraction was more than enough time.

With grim satisfaction, Kairen watched as no less than five stingers punctured Zar’s armor, three in his torso and one each in his left leg and right arm. Between the blood loss and the injected venom, Zar was immediately incapacitated and fell to the ground, where a maddened stomp from the giant arachnid ended his vile life.

The scorpion seemed content to focus on destroying its surroundings, and Kairen left it to that, moving over to watch the nomads were still focused on getting as many slaves out of the city as possible, although they didn’t hesitate to fight the few people who objected to their actions, be they slave owners or mercenary guards. Otherwise, they were content to let everyone flee into the desert, little kindness that may be. A part of Kairen hoped that the nomads would change their plans once he let them know Zar was dead, but it didn’t take him long to realize just how foolish that thought was. The scorpion was clearly an ancient monster from the depths of the Shifting Sands, and the only reason it was present was that the nomads had lured it here, likely pulling the Oasis itself deeper into the Sands in the process. The only reason they would bother to lure such a monster here was that they didn’t think they could defeat Zar without its help, and if whatever monster they lured was on the same power level as someone they couldn’t beat it really wouldn’t convince them to turn around and fight it. After all, as far as they knew, sooner or later the monster would be forced to return to the depths of the desert, and the nomads could freely come back to clean up the survivors Unfortunately for them, they didn’t realize just how much damage the scorpion was doing to the integrity of the Oasis itself. One by one Kairen could feel his upgrades being torn away, as the scorpion diligently found and destroyed any object with a speck of power in it.

Looking at the mass of captives celebrating their new freedom as they waited by the edge of the Oasis, Kairen knew that even if this particular gambit did cost him his life he would still consider it worth it. Better for there to be no Oasis at all than one that aided slavers. Besides, he had just witnessed the end of Zar Bloodwake.

Leaving the nomads to their work, and instructing the rats to go along with them, Kairen meandered his way back to the scorpion to keep an eye on it when he was interrupted by a high-pitched scream. Moving as fast as he could, he soon found the source.

The monster had found a new target, a young girl no older than eight, who had apparently been hiding in her house with her parents when the scorpion arrived to tear it all down. Only her small stature allowed her to survive the collapsing walls and ceiling unscathed, and her terror-fueled flight allowed her to open up a small gap between her and the scorpion. It didn't take long for the monster to start chasing her, and despite her cutting through every narrow gap she could, her hunter was relentless, using sheer power to keep up with her.

Her jewelry-decorated arms told Kairen that she wasn't a slave child, and for a moment he felt a surge of callous bitterness before his mind caught up with his initial reaction. No matter how much he might have come to hate slavers and everyone who supported a system that treated people like they were no more than things, this girl wasn't responsible for any of that. She had never bought someone at the auction, and if she had ordered slaves around it was only because she had been following the example her parents had set for her. None of that was cause enough to leave her to be murdered by a monster. And while Kairen couldn’t necessarily stop the scorpion by himself, that didn’t mean he couldn’t help the girl out in a couple of ways.

The easiest way to aid the girl was to act as a guide. She might not be able to see him, but it didn’t take long for Kairen to arrange an obvious trail of rats, guiding her along a path that would hopefully slow the scorpion down as it tried to follow her. Trying to slow the monster down directly proved to be futile, the multitude of tails more than able to deal with the few rats that were willing to try and buy some extra time for the girl. Realizing that even with his help the girl wouldn't be able to make it to the nomads before the scorpion caught her, Kairen adjusted the direction he was leading her. He had one last card left to play.

It took seconds that seemed like minutes, but soon enough the girl had made it to the center of the Oasis and had snuck through a gap in the wall surrounding the pool of water. Zar had put a large number of resources into protecting his source of liquid life, and the giant scorpion found itself unable to simply bulldoze through this obstacle like it had the many houses before. Enraged, its claws went to work, hammering and tearing at the barrier of earth and stone that blocked its path. Soon it found itself standing on the other side of a pile of rubble, only to see that its prey had vanished.

Unfortunately, the girl could only hold her breath for so long, and she was forced to come up for another breath of air before the scorpion lost interest and left for elsewhere. Kairen silently cursed. He had been hopeful that his idea might have worked, but this was the first time that the girl had ever been in a body of water. Without knowing how to swim or how to properly hold her breath, she simply wasn’t able to stay under long enough.

At first, it seemed like simply being in the water would be enough to deter the monster from following her. Instead of charging straight in, it circled the pool for a bit, before realizing that there was no easy way for it to reach the girl from the shore. Cautiously it extended one leg into the water, which frothed and smoked as it vigorously objected to the presence of something so antithetical to what Kairen had grown the Oasis into. Alarmed, the scorpion drew its leg back, only to pause when it realized that the damage was merely superficial. The monster simply was too old and powerful. Slowly at first, the monster waded into the pool, carefully moving towards the girl it was so fixated on. Sensing her peril, the girl began to swim away, but she didn’t have the strength to quickly wade through the water, nor the skill to swim. Wreathed in smoke, the scorpion drew closer and closer, its tails curling back in anticipation of a vicious strike.

Now! Kairen thought, and spent all the points he had saved up. Every upgrade had increased the amount of potential he could hold before having to make a choice, and while the upgrades themselves might have been worn away by the destructive power of the scorpion, that pool of points had sat untouched. In a single moment, Kairen spent them all on an upgrade he had passed over for far too long. Pool depth was one of the earlier upgrades, but Zar had taken over the Oasisbefore Kairen really managed to invest in it much. And once any upgrades to the Oasis would benefit this killer and avowed enemy, Kairen had done his best to purchase the least useful upgrades possible. Giving the Oasis protection against arrows and sunlight while refusing to grant zar access to any more water to distribute. It had been mostly petty, especially knowing that Zar did still benefit from his other choices, but Kairen was grateful now for his decision. Ina rumbling instant, the pool doubled, then tripled in depth. The ground that both the scorpion and the girl had been standing on vanished, replaced by water that left all six legs scrambling for footing. The girl was light enough to mostly float, aided by panicked thrashing, but the scorpion was far heavier thanks to its almost impenetrable armor. With a single outraged hiss, it sank out of sight, its eyes glaring at the world that had betrayed it. Landing solidly on the bottom of the pool it began to vibrate in anger, and whatever it was doing struck Kairen to his core. It was all he could to remain conscious as the scorpion began to march towards the edge of the Oasis looking to pull itself out, only to come face to face with a shear wall There was no gentle sloping bottom the scorpion could use to escape, and once again it doubled its metaphysical aggression. Somewhat adjusted to the pain, Kairen managed to focus his attention on the scorpion, the unnatural clarity of the water allowing him to see it as it pitted its strength against the magic of the Osis.

All around him the effects were clear to see as the magic was slowly leached out of the Oasis. The ground turned back to sand and plants withered as the Oasis slowly shrunk in size, and the storm outside began to weave its way through the defenses, choking the air and blinding the eyes. The pool itself shrank, becoming smaller and smaller, and shallower and shallower. If things continued at this pace then all too soon the scorpion would be the victor of this contest, standing victorious over a patch of sand indistinguishable from the rest of the desert.

Baring his teeth in what was half a smile, half a defiant challenge, Kairen opened up this upgrade screen and once more sent the scorpion tumbling downwards. If it had been solely the ghost against the monster he would have certainly lost, but even now he could see, hear, and feel the nomads going about their rescue mission. Without Zar to either rally the mercenaries or keep them in line they had either died quickly to the more organized force or had taken advantage of the chaos to run away. Now the nomad’s focus was on taking care of the slaves they had rescued, feeding them and tending to their injured while setting up or taking over shelters to protect them from the sandstorm that was still picking up pressure. For both the nomads and the slaves, today was a day that mattered, and Kairen was able to feed off of that significance. For all that the scorpion was tearing the Oasis down, the people living here were keeping it alive, and Kairen was more than happy to return the favor and keep them alive and the monster at bay.

The constant pain of having an integral part of him torn away and rebuilt was agonizing, and it took Kairen a minute to realize that it had stopped after an hour of enduring it. It took another minute for Kairen to come back to his senses, but once he did, he carefully looked around. The most obvious feature present was the large lake his pool had expanded into. At some point, Kairen had stopped paying attention to the exact level of upgrade he had reached and had simply focused on pouring all of the significance he had received into expanding the pool. It was now wider and deeper than Kairen could ever remember it being, having grown enough to swallow a good portion of the town that once surrounded it. Its shores were clear as well, a combination of the constant remodeling of the Oasis and the sandstorm having replaced the rubble or standing structures with a new layer of sand that led right up to the edge of the water. Huddled away from the lake was a cluster of tents, and Kairen watched as curious heads began to pop out now that the storm was gone. Kairen guessed that with the scorpion finally dead the Oasis was no longer trapped in the depths of the Sands it had been pulled to and had returned to a location where the weather wasn’t quite as extreme.

Just before Kairen finished his survey movement by his shore caught his attention. The girl he had tried to save had just crawled to shore, half-drowned and soaked to the bone, but still alive. Helping her move was a small flotilla of rats, both the initial group he had used to guide her to his pool, along with others he had subconsciously asked to help her later. Fortunately for the girl, the battle between the Oasis and the monster had occurred on the spiritual plane and not the physical one, and the scorpion had never managed to get close enough to the surface to strike at her while she was riding out the battle. The only sign she had been present was her hair. While it had once been either a dark brown or black, Kairen couldn’t quite remember, now it glowed white, gleaming in a way that spoke of magic and mystery. She might not have come out of the fight, the same as she entered it, but at least she was alive.