Soon, night had fallen over the desert. The penetrating head had disappeared and a dry cool had taken its place. Irell had run out of relds hours ago and the horizon was still covered fully by sand. He had seen no semblance of another living thing since escaping the worms. Silently cursing Void for having dropped him in the middle of nowhere, the Voidling continued his walk forwards.

Finally, as the crescent moon reached its peak in the sky, he found signs of others. A few dunes away, a party of three had stopped moving. He couldn’t make them out perfectly, but considering they all turned to face him, they had probably spotted him as well.

He tried to identify them from this distance but failed, likely due to the skill still being level one after all this time. Before he could begin to walk towards them, one of the figures had begun running from their position. At a speed more than twice as fast as Irell’s, the figure slowly came into view as they closed in.

Wearing all brown and gray colored leather, the figure stopped 25 meters from him. She was short, likely below 1.5 meters in height, and had a lanky build. She had two small fur covered ears near the top of her head and two short-swords on her hips.

Name: Bella D’agotor

Species: Casp

Level: 36

She was over 30 levels over him, and likely had the stats to match, if her speed didn’t already show that. As he was preparing to speak up, the girl raised her hand, smiled, and began to talk.

“Heeeeeeey! Who are you? Why are you in the middle of the deserts alone? Are you also hunting for juvenile Sand Worms? Are you some super secret hero who came to fight the Sand Tempest? Wait wait let me guess. You’re a traveling merchant who explores the world and brings rare and powerful artifacts with him! That has to be it!”

While she was talking, the other two members of her group walked up. Snapping out of his confusion, Irell quickly identified the two.

Name: Dante Forn

Species: Bulnor

Level: 36

Name: Pim Sel

Species: Selen

Level: 34

The first, a large, towering mass of muscle was Dante. He had a great-axe on his back larger than Irell. Wearing thick leather and chain, the behemoth looked like he was unstoppable.

The second was not much shorter, but mess less girthy. Her features were similar to a humans though she had a flatter nose and her ears were simply two holes in the side of her head. She was dressed the most casually, with simple cloth covering her. She had a bright-blue bow in her hands that Irell could instantly tell was enchanted.

While he had been looking them over, Dante gave Bella a lecture. “Bella, you can’t just randomly run towards unknown people in the middle of the desert. What if he tried to attack you when you came close? I’ve told you this everytime we see a group of people or a person outside! Especially if its a single person! You can’t keep doing this.”

Bella sheepishly looked to the side as Dante continued to berate her for what she had done. Meanwhile Pim seemed to be eyeing Irell up and down. He likely looked a mess with the cut up armor and dried blood everywhere.

Soon, Dante seemed to be done and turned to look at Irell. “Sorry about all that. Bella doesn’t know how to let someone speak without asking them hundreds of questions.”

Hearing this, Bella pouted and spoke up. “Yes I do. Pim don’t I let people talk? I do don’t I?”

The two ignored her and Dante continued to talk to Irell. “My name is Dante. The loud one is Bella and the quiet one is Pim. We’re a group of adventurers that came from Sank.”

Irell continued to just stand there, looking over the three adventurers. They seemed more like a dad and sister pair than a group of adventurers but their races shot down any chance of that being true. Seeing Irell not speak up, Bella once again spoke.

“Maybe he’s a mute? Hey are you a mute? Do you speak in writing?”

“My name is Irell. I was… wandering with a group of friends before we got attacked. An elder Sand Worm came and we all ran in different directions. That was last night.” Having come up with a story other than ‘an Energy created me and plopped me in the middle of the desert’, Irell told it. He had no reason to trust any of the three, nor did he want to even be around 3 people with levels in the 30’s.

He could theoretically shoot them with Void Blasts if they tried to do anything but he doubted it would do much. Pim and Bella seemed to be very agility based and could likely dodge while Dante had thicker armor and likely enough Constitution to fight off the Void. While the Void could consume anything, the stronger the thing being consumed was, the longer it took.

“We’re only a couple hours of walk from the city so you should be able to get there soon if you continue in this direction.” Before Irell could respond Pim spoke up.

Unlike Bella’s rapid fire, almost squeaky voice, and Dante’s deep, boisterous voice, Pim’s was collected and almost elegant. “You do realize you’re telling someone who just barely awoke their status to go walking through the desert in the middle of the night towards Sank. The city that basically has no laws other than ‘the strong rule’.

“Well what else am I supposed to do? Yeah sure he probably is super weak and it’ll be hard to survive there but I can’t just take care of him until--”

Cutting him off, Bella squealed and spoke up. “Oooo, oooo! Let me take care of him! I promise I’ll keep him safe and he won’t be a bother. C’mon it’ll only take us a day to find a worm and leave.”

Sighing, Dante walked off and continued his walk into the desert while a smile split Bella’s face. “Lets go Irell. Dante’s not actually a meany but he wants to get this job over with quickly and go home. You’ll be plenty safe with us, we’re really experienced. We’ll stop soon for food and sleep so just stay fine a bit longer and then you can rest.”

WIthout being able to speak up for himself or even talk about the fact that she took the task of keeping him protected, Irell let himself be dragged off by Bella as he knew he could in no way fight her off without dying in the process. Pim let out a chuckle at this sight and followed behind the group.

A few kilometers later the group had stopped at the tallest dune in the area. Irell watched curiously as Dante pulled out a scroll and lit it on fire. A blue bubble spread out in every direction before becoming transparent. Seeing Irell’s expression, Bella explained what the scroll was.

“That's an alarm scroll. Once you burn it it lets out a perimeter 100 meters in every direction and lets out a loud noise if anything walks in. They’re pretty cheap because they’re one use and they’re easy for scribes to make. Usually we wouldn’t use one as there are ways to get around the alarm but in the middle of the desert there isn’t much to be wary of. Once we get back I can show you a few places where you can buy them.”

Still confused as to why Bella was so trusting and nice to him, Irell continued to watch on as Dante pulled food and sleeping mats out of nowhere. His eyes almost sparkled when he realized that Dante did indeed have dimensional jewelry on him. If he could get a hold of it and the bow he could probably study them long enough to get some good leveling done to the enchanting skill.

He knew they wouldn’t let him see either of the two items easily even with the way things were currently playing out so he left it as a maybe for the future. Grabbing the food from Dante, Irell thanked him and began to eat it. It was a long, thick strip of smoked jerky. He couldn’t tell what it was made of but his identify skill showed it as Smoked Jambly. Whatever a jambly even was, Irell was sure he would find it in the city.

It was stringy and hard to bite through but left him feeling full enough after that one piece. Quickly summoning some water, he drank away the salty taste and quenched his thirst. Looking back at the almost family trio, all three were staring at him.

Dante’s voice was the one that ended up breaking the silence. “You know, I’m happy we decided to take him with us now.” The two nodded along with him as they asked him to create some water for them. Water took up too much space for them so they settled for bringing Hydrators, a small cube that could be eaten that helped a body rehydrate itself.

The only issue was how bad they taste so having someone who could summon water was like a wonder for them. As they finished eating the group all began to lie down to sleep. As Irell lay down on the sleeping mat taken out for him, he suddenly felt grateful that his body looked the same as a humans did. If he ended up looking like a being made of Void, it would likely be impossible for anyone to trust him. They would probably just kill him on the spot and parade him as a trophy of some kind instead.

The next morning went in much the same was as the previous night. They ate and drank before Dante swooped everything into his dimensional jewelry and they began to move on again. Through the next few hours, Bella told Irell about the group. They had all known each other since a young age and once they all came of age decided to work together as an adventuring group.

They had spent 2 years working together before Dante had met a woman of his race and married her. She was the only healer in the town they lived in so she couldn’t leave to adventure with them. They had split for 3 years and basically retired before they all met back together once Dante’s son wasn’t a baby. Despite their looks, all 3 members of the teams were in their 40’s, though their levels and stats likely helped to lengthen their lifespan.

During that time, Pim and Bella had explored outside the desert and focused on honing their skills instead of leveling up. When they came back though they found that Dante’s skills had improved even more than theirs due to constantly fighting against warlords near his town.

They now took jobs for a portion of the month before going back so that Dante could be with his child. They also ended up asking about Irell’s past, to which he said that he had amnesia leading up to right before he had awoken his status. They seemed to believe it, and Irell was awarded two levels in a new skill called Deception by the end of the talk.

You have gained a new skill!

Deception Lv 1

Description: The ability to lie, manipulate, or deceive those around you through words or actions.

The walk had been relatively quiet after that point with everyone just moving in silence. That silence was later broken by a screech that almost made Irell bolt from his spot. Looking to the side he saw a juvenile Sand Worm barreling towards the group.