Jackal woke up with a start, cold sweat covering his naked body. Throwing to the side the bundle of light pelts serving as his bed, he stood up and paced restlessly around the tent.

“Same usual tent. Same usual blankets. Same usual nightmare,” he continued to whisper under his breath, trying to calm himself down. After digging a couple circles around his living space with his pacing, Jackal stopped and took a deep breath.

It’s fine, there’s just me here. As he glanced around his family tent and took in his surroundings, he relaxed and started his morning wake up routine.

All dedicated hunters of his tribe such as him were trained from the start to exert their body in the morning as preparation for a hunt, to ready themselves for action. Since he was up earlier than was normal for other hunters, he prolonged his exercises and did them on his own rather than in a group.

A tack or so later, completely covered in sweat and with his breath slightly uneven from the exertion, Jackal patted himself dry with a cloth. Then, he put on a set of light clothes, a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of long baggy pants as was usual in his tribe, complemented with a long robe covering most of his body and inscribed with a simple [Refrigerate] rune.

He parted the pelt flaps, which served as an exit for the tent, which some people from a very different place might recognize as being similar to a yurt, and walked out in the green grass just as most of his clan was waking up.

While walking towards his destination, Jackal checked with those he met on their general condition, asking for their health and making sure no one had a Burra infestation breeding under their abodes. It wouldn’t be the first time, and the things were quite nasty.

Every single person living in the village, including himself, were part of the Oni people. Although they have generally similar body structure to a human, there are quite a few features which prevent anyone from mistaking them as one.

Oni stand two meters tall on average, have a straight horn growing from the middle of their forehead, and their skin is a different colour from humans, depending on the role they assume in their family group.

For example, Jackal’s skin, as a hunter, had a blood red pigmentation as a result of his job, while most of the people he passed by had grey skin in the case of craftsmen, or tending towards the green in the case of gatherers and ranchers.

There were four more individuals which had different skin colours from the other hundred or so people which made up the village, all of them with various shades of cyan.

Currently, Jackal was walking towards the tent of one of these individuals, specifically the one belonging to the tribe elder, the oldest woman living amongst, who had the power to perceive the currents of Time.

It was tradition for those leading a hunt to visit the village elder before departure, to be granted advice, blessings and good fortune in general.

As the leader in question, Jackal had to take the honour; as the adopted grandson of the woman, he was less than enthusiastic on having to listen to her rambling on and on.

Not a few minutes after walking out of his own tent, he found himself in front of his grandmother’s, and without even bothering to wait for permission, he entered.

As he expected, the elder woman was already waiting for him, sitting on the other side of a wicker table, a cup of herb tea in her hands. Another cup was already waiting for him, as was a chair made of the same woven material as the table.

“Come in, Jackye, don’t be shy,” she said to him, a big smile plastered on her face. “Took you some time, I almost thought you weren’t going to show up!”

“Elder Nalia, I-” he tried to say, but was immediately interrupted.

“Nuh-uh, you know the rules,” she piped up, her smile growing even larger, “you have to call me ‘granny’ when we’re alone.” Her tone was almost reproaching, which irked him even more.

“… I came as soon as I woke up. Grandmother.” Jackal responded, trying to keep his face and tone completely impassive. It wasn’t very effective.

“Now, now, you were always a bad liar. You hunters are truly all the same.” Nalia sighed and put down her cup of tea. “But anyway. You’re here for the hunt’s blessing, right?”

Jackal nodded, although he knew there wasn’t usually much for it. A couple words of encouragement and a request for the spirits to protect them, mostly to appease superstitious and or traditional people.

“Very well.” Nalia grew unusually serious, and he could see a glint in her eyes as the most powerful woman in the clan spoke. “I have no advice to give you for this hunt, as you and the rest of the hunt are already experienced enough to know most dangers laying in wait in the sands. Still, you must remember to never let your guard down.”

He nodded again, and she continued her short speech.

“I consulted the spirits last night, and they deemed us worthy of a blessing for this occasion,” she said as she made a quick gesture with her hand, causing both of their Skill Crystals to glow softly for a moment.

“Finally, a word from my dreams,” she said, locking her eyes with his.

Jackal perked up. It was unusual to get both a blessing and a vision from the future in an entire rotation, not to mention for a single hunt.

“Listen and listen well, Jackal. You must be ready to let past grudges go for the future to flourish. Don’t ignore coincidences, because they are rarely what they seem.” Then, she dropped the serious face, and a grin grew in its place.

“But what would this old hag know, eh?”

Jackal finished the routine maintenance on his bardiche, a weapon similar to a halberd, his mind was lost in reflecting on the words of his grandmother, which still made little sense to him.

He was so lost in thought, that he almost didn’t notice that his group was all ready to go and depart for the hunt. The party was composed of six Oni, him included, armed with weapons the clan had managed to buy or scrounge up the materials for over the years.

Polearms, bows and slings were the most common, although a few were equipped with swords or axes, and a shield. All of them wore tough leather armour under their cooling cloaks and robes, which were essential for prolonged trips in the desert’s heat.

They would be travelling out of the Green zone the tribe was travelling with using two Sandboats, a kind of very precious and rare craft enchanted to sail over most flat terrains and sand. Since their tribe only possessed three of them, it was of utmost importance that they took good care of it.

As Jackal and his squad boarded the crafts, Yalm, the unofficial second in command, sidled up to him and asked him in a low but almost reverent tone, “what’s the word from the Elder?”

“The usual. Stay low, don’t eat sand, keep your eyes open.” Then, in a more serious tone and raising his voice, he announced to the rest of the squad. “We’ve got a minor blessing on our side, but don’t count on it to save your lives. Remember, always look out for each other’s back.”

The rest of the group cheered at the welcomed news, but swiftly went back to being serious as they departed. The Sandboats lifted themselves off the ground as a complicated series of glyphs lit up on the underside of the vessels, and they sped up towards the golden sands.

Hidden behind a dune with two other hunters, Jackal signalled the rest of the party, who were in turn hiding a couple dozen meters away from them, to prepare for their attack.

Almost a cycle had passed since the party set out for the hunting trip, and already the Sandboats’ inscribed freezers were filled up by three quarters with the carcasses of various creatures, already field dressed and waiting for a butcher to work on them.

Now, Jackal and the rest of the party were ready to ambush a Larvae Queen, which would be enough to fill them up and get them on their way home in record speed. If this was the work of their blessing, he just hoped they hadn’t used them up for the rest of the rotation.

The creature was just sitting in the middle of an open field, just a hundred meters from the collapsed carcass of a Titan Arachnid, probably where the thing had decided to lay its nest.

Usually, Jackal or any other sane hunter would be reluctant to engage such a dangerous and territorial creature, but this case was different. The creature was severely injured, barely able to move even if it was still alive, with most of its appendages torn off or broken.

If that wasn’t enough, there were even what appeared to be several spears protruding from its body-

“Wait. Something isn’t right,” Jackal spoke up for the first time since they had spotted the creature, startling the rest of their party who were readying themselves for the engagement.

They were even further confused when Jackal stood up and started to walk towards the creature, which for its part stayed immobile, confirming that it was either dead or completely unable to move.

The others soon followed after him, keeping their eyes open for threats just like he was, quickly covering the hundred or so meters separating them from the massive body.

Jackal and the rest were startled when they noticed the half a dozen corpses of Sand Wyrms littered around the queen, almost unnoticeable when laying immobile in the sand.

One of the hunters was so surprised they actually shot an arrow they had kept at the ready into one of the carcasses, which prompted the others to turn around and stare hard at him, although they couldn’t exactly blame him much. Were the things still alive, they would have been ambushed and certainly injured, in the best case.

Reaching a distance of just ten meters from the Larvae Queen, Jackal slowly approached it, keeping his bardiche at the ready in case it was just playing dead. Then, when he was near enough, he extended his weapon and poked it in its flabby body.

All of them kept their breath in, watching for a reaction, but when it was apparent the thing was not going to react, they all let out a collective sigh of relief.

“Alright, start dragging them back to the Sandboats, the Wyrms first and then this thing all together. We’ll see what fits and then decide on quality,” Jackal exclaimed to the rest of the troop, preparing himself for the ordeal of dragging hundreds of kilos of meat by hand; although the place seemed safe, they were all reluctant to bring the valuable boats near danger, no matter they would be exhausted by the end of it all.

Before going to help the others, Jackal walked around the Queen, making sure they hadn’t missed anything. That was when he saw it. Him.

A human laid on the sand, his legs and part of his lower body crushed under the soft meat of the beast, what he could see covered in gashes and other, more grave wounds. He wore nothing to cover his upper body, and had a wet rag tied around his head.

“A human? What-” Before he could stop himself, Jackal bent down to check on his vitals, finding he was still alive. “His breathing is shallow.” He stood there, looking down at the human.

“Good.” He simply stated, and started to turn around. Then he saw a small detail, which he had barely noticed in the midst of all the blood and sand.

The human had chestnut hair, which together with black, blonde and a few other colours was pretty standard for humans and other humanoids such as, for example, Oni. What had Jackal pause with incredulity was a single lock of blonde hair, falling down on his forehead.

No, not blonde.

Gold.