(Castien.)

Sure enough, just as I'd figured would be the case, Nazanin was the woman for the job of rallying the women and children to follow us.

Though, to be fair, it didn't take much beyond the promise of being freed once we'd gotten out of the sandstorm; that, and the fact that she had shown herself a capable warrior who was on their side, allowed the elf to exert a calming leadership over the tired and shaken captives.

The collars, we agreed, could wait until after we got into a place of calmer weather. Neither of us too much fancied the idea of staying blind to our surroundings and open to another attack by sand crawlers or worse.

However, the very first order of business, even before moving out and getting back on the road, had been for Nazanin to shatter the chains that bound the former slaves.

With that, and a declaration that they were now free and that she would do everything within her power to see them to safety, the elf warrior had all but secured the current loyalty of the people whom she now led; you could see it in their eyes, which though tired and dark-ringed, mostly glowed with a days-long hidden relief.

A few of our new group knew how to drive horses; I imagined it was a pretty common skill in this world anyway. So, with their help, the still-living horses and remaining carts were driven forward.

It was a bit of a task moving the bodies of the crawlers and soldiers out of the way of the convoy, but many hands made for quick work.

A part of me wanted to bury all of the fallen, but Nazanin suggested that to make the very people who had been reduced to cattle under the mercenaries to load, transport, and honor their captors' bodies might not go over well. In the end, I settled for making sure each of their eyes were at least closed.

The merchant, for what it was worth, was tied by my own hand and thrown into his own carriage. I secured the door to the makeshift cell from the outside.

The idea of figuring out how to unlock the collars before moving out had entered my mind, but I had ultimately decided against it. It would take too much time.

Even if it would be somewhat satisfying to slap a freed up collar on the man who had put them around the necks of who knew how many innocent people.

Besides, I realistically didn't want to rely on a collar for securing the merchant, seeing as he would know all its secrets and might be able to get out of it even without his control ring.

It was a ring which I now wore on a rope around my neck, out of sight, as to avoid any worries from the women and children that I might be holding it over their heads as their former captors had.

Nazanin came up beside me on a horse.

My elf comrade had been moving between the horses and carts, talking and getting to better know our new companions.

Amarie rode beside her, though she kept her eyes downcast. I worried for the girl, but didn't quite know what to do to comfort her. I hoped she just needed time and maturing to realize that whatever connection she'd had with Alister wasn't truly one resembling a father and daughter, but that it was tainted by their circumstance and not something to mourn for.

I, meanwhile, rode on the front of the merchant's carriage beside a tired looking, but sturdy boned, woman.

The sandstorm still waged all around us, though it maybe seemed to be dying down as we went.

"How much further do you think" I asked.

It had been Nazanin that had explained to me that many of the largest sandstorms in the region were produced through naturally occurring mana storms. Which were surges of mystical energy, grouped together by happenchance, that violently stirred up the particles of dirt and dust beneath them.

Apparently, such mana storms were better escaped than weathered through, as their duration was nearly entirely unpredictable; they might last an hour, or they might last weeks. The worst of them could swallow entire towns and terrorize cities; though that was a rare magnitude of storm indeed.

"See there," Nazanin reached up and pointed; my sharp eyes focused and, with the aid of her pointing it out, I could make out the light of the sun starting to break from the raging sands ahead. "We should crest near to the top of the canyon soon. There we should come out above this storm; I believe it is sitting low enough for that to be true."

"Alright," I replied. "From there we free these people of their collars. You said yours was removed with the ring before?"

"It was," she confirmed. "There was a word, I believe it was a form of the older dwarven tongue, but I can not repeat it correctly."

She might not be able to, but if I heard it then I knew my Intelligence score would allow me to mimic something as simple as a single word easily enough; I still remembered the other two command words I'd heard by heart. I just needed to get the final one out of our new captive.

"That's fine," I said. "We'll get the merchant to tell us. One way or another."

"Castien," Nazanin trailed her voice.

"Yes?" I turned my gaze to her, breaking my eyes of the emerging light ahead.

She looked almost concerned.

"You do not act as a child," she said.

I shook my head. "There's too much to explain."

She nodded.

"I don't have anything to hide," I said. "And I'd still be happy to tell you eventually, but I need to put it all together in my own head first."

It was a lot to unpack: being reborn, what James had done, not to mention what he'd become and unleashed. I couldn't lie and say I didn't feel some kind of responsibility for that.

Whatever the Corruptor was, it needed to be stopped, anyone could tell that within five seconds of meeting it, but I also just needed to survive this new world.

I didn't know the limits of power in this reality, or if I could even reach them. The sins of my father would have to wait until I had a better footing in my new life.

However, with the way the thing had spoken of me as a tool for its own plans... I wasn't sure I'd get a chance to oppose it if it was as all-seeing as it suggested. Though, thankfully, there did seem to be some element of chance in its predictions; that might at least give me a shot at not being useful to the thing.

"I understand," the elf warrior replied. "But, if there is anything that might come to harm us as a group, while we travel together--"

Her voice trailed off in suggestion.

"I get it," I said; she didn't seem to be threatening me, only setting simple, but clear, boundaries. "That's fair. I don't think that it would, but that's the best that I can give you for now."

"You did well in the battle," she said and changed the subject. "You had a warrior's eyes and focus. I've known some who are fully aged who never come upon such things."

"Thank you," I said; there was a strange pride and solemnness all the same that came with once being a soldier. "It's not my first time."

"It must be a long story indeed for that to be true to the extent that I saw in you before," the woman replied. "But I will let you keep it until you can share it well."

The sun and fresh air broke through to touch our skin and fill our thankful, gravelly lungs as we climbed up and over the last of the mana storm.

The air was hotter outside of the shade of the sandstorm, but much easier to breathe down. It was... well, a breath of fresh air.

Glancing down to the lower canyons we'd left, from our new vantage point, allowed me to see the truly massive system of whipping sands that stretched for miles and miles below us; it was as if we now floated on a large chunk of red rock above a cloud of furious brown.

The idea of such a storm centering on, or even just near, any kind of civilization suddenly filled me with a sense of empathetic dread.

Such a thing could drive commerce, travel, and even just daily life to a complete halt. Even in this world, nature seemed to rival man's capabilities for destruction--perhaps even more so in this world of wild magic and strange monsters.

We traveled a bit further up the canyon, until we reached a outcropping of rock that would be comfortably large enough for us to stop and survey the area.

"We'll need to feed everyone from the supply wagon," Nazanin told me when she returned from guiding the convoy into circling up to a stop. "That should be the first thing we do."

"I think the collars should come first," I said. "These people have had food, even if not much; they haven't had freedom since this nightmare began for them."

The elf woman looked into my own eyes carefully. "Perhaps there is wisdom to those words."

"You can get the food line started," I offered. "I'll get the command word from our guest. Then we can ask him about any maps. We should be able to get a vantage point of the area somewhere nearby."

"It is a plan, Castien," Nazanin agreed with me and began to trot her horse off to accomplish our decided upon goals; she took Amarie with her. "We will speak more soon."

Alister's sword was now my own and with it I began to circle the luxurious carriage that held the merchant captive. Not one to waste rope, I allowed myself the time to undo the lashing I'd sealed the broken door with.

It was time to officially free these people from bondage. Past time.