The light wind kicked up some loose dirt, blowing it past my legs onto the uncovered pit in front of me. In the dimness before sunrise, I could make out vermin scuttling around in the pit, oblivious to my glare. Instead, their focus no doubt lay in the feast around them. If I could smell, I knew I would have been gagging from the stench that was most likely coming from before me. However, I only stood silently while lost in thought, looking at the intertwined limbs of naked, rotting corpses piled in the mass grave. No matter the world, it seemed like cruelty followed some basic patterns.

Looking at the mess of canopies and tents in the distance surrounding a few mud, brick buildings, I knew from Bihar's memories how it had taken the Skull Blades close to five years to build up this little mining settlement while collecting slaves in different ways and from different sources. Being on the fringe of the Forbidden Wastes, unfortunately their efforts had been hampered by the lack of water and an easy source of food. However, their greed had kept them going on his insane venture, the lives of their slaves mindlessly being exchanged for wealth.

“Idiots...” My voice sounded gravelly being spoken out loud, but my crudely modified larynx, courtesy of Bihar, was functioning as well as it could. The shifting of feet behind me prompted me to continue. “ Asunam, you disagree?”

The tight voice of my first human servant responded shakily. “No... how could I... no, Great One...”

I turned around to observe him, taking note of his uncomfortable shuffling. Still, my servant seemed at least a bit more professional looking with his salvaged chain mail and steel helmet, along with his newly acquired clothes underneath the armor, also courtesy of Bihar. Pointing to the open pit of bodies, I ground out, “This is a waste. The greatest resource any civilization has is its people. Even if they were reduced to slaves, wasting their lives like this...” I stopped speaking as I noticed Asunam's confused look and sighed as I reconsidered trying to explain modern human socioeconomic theory to him.

In any case, my purpose for coming here was simple. There was no need to complicate things. “Forget it. Do what we discussed earlier. Ride in there and tell them to surrender. If they do, I'll leave them alive to work off their sins. If they resist, they'll still end up surrendering, though they may loose a few pieces of their bodies in the process.” Looking at my servant's face go pale, which was a quite a feat considering his deep tan, I knew I could count on him to deliver my message.

While killing them all like the previous bunch was tempting, the slaughter in the oasis had slaked my thirst for blood for now, and I had decided to graciously modify their punishment to servitude for the rest of their miserable lives with death always being an option. More importantly, as I was starting to rebuild part of the ironworks in the fortress, I belatedly realized that I needed servants with opposable thumbs and intelligence that allowed them to do some technical work. Still... looking back at the mass grave nearby, some part of me viciously hoped the fucking sand thieves did at least put up some resistance.

As Asunam mounted his horse and put her into a canter towards the ramshackle settlement, I cast [Invisibility] and [Float] on myself and headed towards the open pit mine near the settlement. There was more than one reason to check out the place, of course. From Bihar's memories, I knew that the slaves mostly slept near where they worked, but I was also interested in the concentration of the mana cyrstal veins. I didn't expect it to be anywhere near the mother load that was currently occupying a third of my fortress, but any mana crystal source was an irreplaceable treasure.

Nearing the mining area, I saw large mounds of dirt and stones piled in places along with the presence of increasingly denser track marks and foot prints. By the time I reached the outer rim of the open, pit mine, I was able to get a good view of its wide, oval shaped boundary. Though the mine wasn't too deep, there were at least four terraces, each getting smaller in area the deeper they were.

Showing obvious signs of human excavation, the terraces each held dirt paths, along with scattered wagons and crude mining tools. I caught sight of visible deposits of mana crystals in some places, and my mana senses told me that the concentration of solidified mana in this area was on the low end. Still, it was worth the effort for a group like the sand thieves.

In the top terrace, I finally caught sight of the mine slaves, most of whom were raggedly dressed and seemed to be waking up for the new day, while crawling out of their frayed tents and mishmash of blankets. Thankfully, there were no children, but seeing their thin, malnourished bodies, I still fell the cold anger building in me. I knew from Bihar's memories that these people had been farmers, innocent travelers, independent merchants, and even poor townsfolk. Worse yet, many of them had once had children before they were enslaved. What had happened to those children after they were separated from their families was left to my imagination. I didn’t know these people well enough to feel unreasonable outrage at their plight, but neither was I going to turn a blind eye to what was before me.

Skirting around the edge of the mine, I finally approached the thieves’ camp, finding it coming alive with activity. Among the haphazard cluster of tents, crates, barrels, domesticated animals, and other material, men were waking up to a new day and doing their morning routines. Most were stumbling or fumbling around bleary eyed, others were busy scarfing down food, and a few were busy dressing.

Floating over the camp, I estimated there were about 60 or so men present, along with a dozen or so women, who definitely did not look like brutal bandits. From their withdrawn states and in cases vacant gazes, I could guess at the purpose of their existence in this place, definitely confirming this was not Robin Hood’s band of merry men. Chalking down the need to adjust my battle plan to include them, I finally caught sight of Asunam standing alongside his horse outside a couple mud brick buildings in the center of the settlement.

As I drew closer, I realized that Asunam's arrival had already alerted the bigwigs, as a handful of better dressed men, armed with weapons from which I sensed mana fluctuations, were already speaking with him. However, what truly made me smile inside was the mana fluctuations from the souls of three of the men. It seemed as though my first, major goal of infiltrating civilization was met, since I had a total of three low tier humans to choose from.