Part 1

The morning air was dry, clawing at the few bits of exposed skin. A soft wind blew, raising small clouds of sand every once in a while, yet still, it did nothing to soothe the sensation of being boiled slowly. The cadaveric paleness of my skin, even under the thick layer of dirt and pain I smeared on it, was clearly dissipating, finally regaining some healthy color.

All around me, the city was bustling in preparation for the day. There weren’t as many people out as they would deep into the morning, yet still, the chaos they rose was quite commendable. My hand instinctively moved to the water skin on my waist as my eyes darted from one side of the road to the other. I slapped it away mentally as I overcame that boredom-born thirst. Then, finally, I recognized, coming out of a little side street, the five individuals I was so patiently waiting for.

A tall man with sharp features and a military cut carrying two axes on his back, a slender woman with auburn hair tied in a tight bun holding a short bow, a pair of twins looking slightly older than me and both carrying a pair of sabers on their waists and finally, an old man with short salt and pepper hair and a thick beard with tiny braids. His weapon of choice seemed to be some kind of metallic, long stick, colored in brownish red and having a curved blade at the very top. It was a curious weapon, a mixture between a staff and a spear, yet far different from both.

“Are you Mikrael, the one who’s supposed to party up with us?” The tall man, most likely the leader of the party asked. His voice was calm and collected, rigorous even, with a hint of pride and authority.

“Yes, I’m Mikrael-” I answered following my words with a slight bow of the head “- I know it’s just a porter job but…thank ya for taking me along!”

“Haha, worry not little one-” Answered the old man as he stroke softly his beard “- Miss Cahila said you are quite the hard-working fellow and has personally vouched for you. We were in need of such a person and I’m sure were as much eager to “step up”, so to say, from the boring quests of the city, no?”

“Yes, ya easily read through me” I chuckled as I, in return, received a heavy pat on the shoulder from one of the twins.

“I’m sure ya know already-” He said pushing in my hands a piece of yellowish paper signed by the guild with the written requirements for the quest and a brief description of the monsters in question “- but today’s quest topic is extermination”

“Two types of monsters at that!” Chimed in the other twin.

“One’s the ‘sandworm hatchling’ and the other’s the ‘heatfield devil’. There’s no reason to know the whole story in detail but basically, ‘cause of a overhunting of those guys’ common enemy, the ‘sand crawlers’, their numbers are shooting to the ceiling” The first twin explained in what I gathered was a chirpy, kind of happy, tone. Like a child talking about his favorite toy.

“Now their habitats are expanding and trading caravans find it hard to avoid those fellas-” Continued the second twin “- That’s where we come in! Well, we and other…I don’t know, five, ten other parties? Whatever. We just need to waltz in their habitats, kill a bunch of ‘em and hightail our way out. Easy, right?”

“Ten parties?-” I asked surprised “- Are extermination quests that popular?”

“Mhh I wouldn't put it like that exactly-” Replied the leader “- But this one’s a little special. You see, both the hatchling and the devils’ corpses sell for good coins. The hatchlings have a gland called…ehm-”

“Digestive poisonous undeveloped gland” Promptly replied the woman with a knowing sigh.

“Yeah, that-” Continued the man with a slight flush of the cheeks “- don’t ask me dets about it but basically it’s used by healers and the such. A revitalizer for muscles, was it? Well, you get the gist. And about the ‘heatfield devils’, when they die, their rock body becomes kinda soft so we can extract this pearl-sized gem that blacksmiths use. Apparently, it makes iron more malleable and durable”

“Basically we get paid by the guild the more we hunt and we gain more by selling their corpses. I get now why so many parties want in” I answered.

“Attaboy” Smirked the woman, finally taking a break from her emotionless expression.

“Now then-” Continued the leader as he clapped his hands to call for attention “- We’ll keep the usual roles. I’ll be in front, Cyri covers me from the middle, Don and Alec go wild on the sides, and Ebbron as usual covers our back. You, Mikrael, will stay between Cyri and Ebbron. Cahila told me you can fight so you may be asked to support us, though your main job will be carrying the loot and bags. Is that okay?”

“Yessir!”

“That’s a good attitude-” The man replied as he slammed a heavy hand on my shoulder while laughing “. Then, let’s go make some money!”

* * *

I was lost in thought as our group approached the border between the two habitats. My mind was too busy recollecting and piecing together the information I would need to deliver the next day to care about the pointless chitchat being held by the group. I found myself being thankful to the guild’s receptionist for her many requests, even though I hated every single second of it. Working under her felt like the very definition of a willing slave as her “favors” ranged from dealing with real adventurer’s quests that no one took, being a literal delivery boy, to more…private affairs. Affairs I’d much rather forget. Though thanks to that, I was able to gather much more information than I could ever do on my own.

Being the meek newbie adventurer being used as nothing more than a toy by the scheming guild receptionist, seemed to give those I dealt with some kind of sense of security. As if I was too dumb and worthless to even dare to voice what was told to me. Thus, through their sometimes shady conversations, I learned of hidden passages into the city, names of corrupted guards and adventurers, and so on and so forth. Truly a treasure trove of exploitable information.

The latest job, this extermination quest, was supposed to be a gift given by Cahila as thanks for my good performance. Though, of course, the money that came from it mattered little to me. However, the party was a whole different story. Through much coercing on my part, I was able to be placed into a party belonging to the group under the lord. Fairly low down the food chain, surely, but still enough to grant me the information, if everything went to plan, that I lacked.

I had a general idea of their overall numbers and structure. A rough sketch of how they worked and acted and whose nest not to stir. What I needed now was to know how much of a threat those that the people dubbed as “strong” really were.

[One more day. Just one more day and I can finally leave this shithole full of sand!-] I sighed mentally, shivering as I briefly recalled the things I had to do ever since coming to Blackwall [- I’m really starting to hate sand. It’s coarse and rough and it gets e-...let’s not go there…Just one more day]

“We’re close to the border-” The leader finally said after hours of march “- Keep your wits about you and stay sharp!”

True to his word, around half an hour later, the first hint of action that stirred that dull march crossed our path. A cloud of sand rose from behind a dune, too neat and rigorous in its wake to be called a natural occurrence. “Hatchlings” Ebbron explained. He briefly told me that their nature is to travel under the sand and only rise above to hunt, timid and cautious unless a mature sandworm is with them. Not in need of a command, the party extracted their weapons and fell into a wider formation. I followed their example and compacted sand under my feet in a circular shape.

The hatchlings had since before noticed our presence but opted to keep their distance, now, judging that the odds were in their favor, they shed their timid nature and dived in a chaotic and formless attack. The previous neat cloud of sand widened and turned into a thin brown mist, just bothersome enough to slightly obstruct our vision. Soft tremors began shaking the sand the more they approached. Finally, I figured out why we compacted the sand. It was a signal: the closer the monster was, the dustier the sand became. A natural radar.

The battle began when the first hatchling rose from the ground with a loud screech. Its jagged mouth appeared to me as still blender, just with more blades. More than five rows of sharp triangular teeth littered the thing’s mouth and throat. It had no eyes, no nose, and no ears. Just a body with an oversized mouth. In time, the hatchling would grow sturdy scales and spikes of bone on its back. But, as it was now, a hatchling’s worst fear is a sharp blade. One such as Alec’s which cut right through the middle of the monster’s body, separating the still screeching appendage from the rest.

What happened next was a flurry of high-pitched screeches, orders barked aloud, and joyful warcries, along with the sound of gushing blood. I joined in the fray, gleefully letting go of my firm grip on control in favor of the instincts I developed in my adventurer days at the academy. I slashed left and right, using solely the power of my arms as I had tucked mana deep within me. By the end of it, of the twenty-six hatchlings that attacked, three escaped uninjured, and the rest perished. Of the battle, the only remaining signs were the numerous corpses and the slimy greyish liquid that was the hatchlings’ blood. Not wanting to waste precious time in hostile territory, we butchered the corpses, looking for glands in good condition, then we resumed the march.

Throughout the next hours, skirmishes with both groups of monsters began sprouting like wildfire, sometimes not giving us even a brief moment to rest between fights. We fought lone hatchlings and heatfield devils, cleaned up the survivors of fights between the two monsters, run and hide from groups numbering in the hundreds and partner up with two other parties to deal with larger groups. There were no major incidents or injuries, a few scratches, some bites, and a bit of scorching here and there. Nothing that could not be treated with oils and bandages. And though action was abundant, after the first couple of fights, the day became dull. Monotone in the distastefulness of repetitive fights. The only cure for boredom being the satisfaction that came from knowing my sword skills, through extenuating repetition, were improving.

Suddenly, that circle of march, fight, and gathering was interrupted, stirring my attention and coercing my focus away from the sand surrounding me. It started as a hum, ringing low in my ears. Nothing more than the buzzing of a pesky fly. The everlasting heat and the fatigue inexorably building up led me to ignore that hum, regarding it as nothing more than a hallucination.

It was only minutes later that the hum morphed. Whispers of a breath, a soft almost ineffable caress on my drums began insinuating their way into my head. Distant and fleeting, probing the connection between us like a curious child with a stick. It felt too real, too “alive”, to regard it simply as a hallucination. My head turned from side to side as my eyes darted around the dunes, seeking the source of the fastidious sound. Yet I could see nothing as the whispering voice approached, finally delivering the words it was meant to.

[t..-n… ba-.....tu-...c…] It said.

The voice was soundless, lacking tone and taste. The only way I found myself describing it was shapeless as it flushed its way into my thoughts and expanded like water in a bowl. A chill ran down my spine as I focused more deeply on the voice’s words.

[...turn…back…turn…back…] It kept repeating tonelessly.

A sudden surge of inexplicable fear bound my limbs to the ground. My heart rate rose until I could feel the organ beating feverishly against my ribcage and cold sweat washed my body. I looked around in panic, knowing it was there, the source of the voice. The sense of familiarity I kept feeling only fueled that panic.

[...back…turn…back…turn…back…]

Waves of emotions came crashing down on me. Fear and rage mixed into some mind-numbing infuse of liquid adrenaline, sadness painted the golden sand grey as a bitter sensation filled my stomach with poison. Images flashed under my half-closed lids. Imagines I had tried hard not to remember. Images for which I spent many nights awake. Fire and death. The screams and the joy of seeing the suffering. Dark shadows and pale light. The stink of corrosion and the coldness of metal…and pain. Much, much pain. I felt my head splitting as I tried to shout my anguish in a plea to make it stop, yet nothing more than a choked gurgle escaped my lips. Only when I felt my knee cede to gravity’s laws did I regain a moment, brief as it was, of respite. In that fragment of lucidity, I rose my mental barriers, picturing a tall and impenetrable wall across my cranium. My shirt was heavy with sweat once the voice finally ceased to exist.

“Hey, you ok there?-” Asked Don, shaking his waterskin in front of my face like a dog’s treats with a heavy look of concern on his face “- You got a bad look on ya!”

“Thank you-” I replied reaching out for the waterskin and letting a heavy gulp of water wash away the vomiting taste in my throat “- I’m fine, really…Guess I underestimated the heat. Sorry for scaring ya’ll”

“Better take a break-” Continued Ebbron as he lightly tapped on my back “- We’ve been marching all morning and we all know how tricky the sun is at this time of the day. Those old bones could really go for a bit of shade!”

Part 2

The day continued on with its boring sequence of fights and marches, fights and marches until our sacks were heavy with loot. The stench coming from those full of glands was foul. We had already fulfilled the requirement for the quest and more thus we jumped at the chance of going back into the city rather than camping for the night. Amidst the boredom of the eventless march, we talked and walked, learning the history of the party and its participants until the black walls came into the distant view.

Tension was heavy in the air from the moment we walked through the gates. A subtle threat lingered in the gazes of the whispering people. I looked around in search of its source and my skin crawled the moment I noticed a column of smoke rising from the slums. The smoke itself or the fire that generated didn’t scare me, rather, it was the location. Around where the smoke was rising from was the inn me and Julie were staying. My heart rate fastened as I dropped the bags full of loot on the spot and ran.

Each breath was choking on my throat, straining painfully against my lungs. The tight streets became blurry as the possibilities of what happened to Julie brewed poison in my mind and mixed it with my sight. People were packed on the streets, going about their daily business, and yet children, women, and men alike were pushed to the sides by the likes of me in my desperate wake.

[Please! Not her! PLEASE!] I pleaded as I could feel my eyes swell heavy with tears.

My heart stopped and plunged my world into silence as I turned the last corner and came face to face with what was supposed to be our inn. Now, not even its original shape was recognizable. The flames had eaten it all up along with the nearby buildings. People stood all around it, some crying, some in shock, some tending to nasty wounds and burns. I watched the people, firefighters I gathered, struggling to put out the flames using sand and buckets of water for a good minute, then I joined the masses.

My heart was beating painfully in my throat as I walked, wobbly and slowly, around the empty spot and streets close to the now-burned inn. I saw a couple of merchants, wife and husband, that had a room at the end of our floor. The old man with his two grandsons whom I chatted with the day before. The prostitute that got kicked out of the brothel where she worked and many more vaguely familiar faces. And I kept on searching until I found, crawled in a ball and sitting on the stump of a column, the owner of the inn.

The short man with tired eyes and red bags underneath them sat there, unmoving. His gaze fixed on the charred ruin of his building. He knew what happened as I was sure he knew where Julie was. Thus, I approached him.

“Owner-” I said in a soft tone, forcing the emotions that were swelling up in me to settle down momentarily “- I’m very sorry for your inn but, can you tell me what happened?”

“T-They came-” He replied without even turning his head at me, acknowledging my voice but not my presence “- They had my son y’know. Said they knew where my wife was and all, said they’d kill ‘em all if I didn’t do what they asked”

“What are you talking about?” I pushed the topic.

“They knew they were here. I didn’t even know, I swear! Mine was just an inn in the slums. Cheap! For people with no coins! I never asked questions, never cared for answers. T-they wanted the two of them but when they found only the girl, they got mad. One of ‘em started to scream and shout like a lunatic and fire engulfed my whole inn”

“They…took her?” I asked. My voice was trembling as I pronounced the words through my clenched teeth to the extent that my jaw hurt. A thin curtain of red was beginning to fill my vision.

“Yes…put her in a sack, still kicking and all…Poor girl…Poor girl, b-but my son. I couldn’t let them have him” The man sobbed.

“They took my sister?!” I thought out loud, my hand clenching tightly around the man’s shoulder.

Finally, he seemed to take notice of me. Whether that was because of my words or because of me gripping his shoulder didn’t matter. His eyes went wide with fear, his pupils shrinking to the size of a grain of rice. His sad, pained expression became a grimace I couldn’t recognize. He shook violently as the realization of who I was dawned on him. He grabbed my wrist and screamed as I prevented him from even thinking of escaping, tightening my grasp on his shoulder even more.

“You let them take my sister?!” I shouted, veins filling with rage and straining on the skin of my neck.

“M-My son…my f-f-family” He said in a plea.

“SHE IS MY FAMILY!” I shouted in a raspy voice, almost a growl.

“There he is!” Shouted a voice from behind me.

I turned around, curious about the voice loud enough that it could drown the entire street’s chaos. In front of a troupe of guards and adventurers dressed in hardened leather stood a middle-aged man. He looked refined, with a well-trimmed short beard and lively eyes. He was curling his lips in a wide grin, proud, almost cocky while pointing one finger at me and playing with the pommel on his sword with the other hand.

“He’s the man we’re looking for, boys. Orders are to capture him alive but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if he’s missing one arm or a le-” He began saying before suddenly stopping.

The eyes of his troupe went wide with fear as the entirety of the street fell into a panicked silence.No one moved, no one blinked, no one breathed as the upper half of the man slid off from his body and slumped dead on the ground. The lower soon followed and the screams right after. It was my spell, one wide and extremely thin wind scythe, that cut him in half.

“I’ve tried being civil, you know-” I said growling as I walked with furious bloodlust towards the troupe “- I wanted nothing more than to protect my sister. I only killed when necessary, the rest…I just knocked them out-” I continued as I slowly extracted my weapon “- And yet, you kept bothering me, trying to capture me, chase me, attempt on my life, and now…you go and take the one person that I swore to protect…I’m tired of this shit”

Screams and warcries rose as the first man fell. Then the second…and third and fourth…then tenth…fifteenth…until only I remained standing on the street. Bloodied, cut and bruised, huffing for air and with dizzying vision. A burning sensation setting fire to my skin all across my body, slithering around my chest and arms. I felt hunger and hate. Rage and disgust. I wanted to burn them all. This city, its guard, the lord, and every wicked man that ever set foot on those grounds.

On a pool of fresh blood, I roared my fury.

Part 3

“So ya come to me, covered in blood and chased by enemies, delivering information now clearly useless since ya fucked up and have the entire Blackwall on high fucking alert! WE HAD A DEAL! AN OATH!” Ali Salhab shouted.

How I came to be there, on the same ship I first met the king, eluded me. My mind was a mess, my thoughts all distorted and jumbled up with contorted perceptions and distorted images. It all felt too familiar, that dizzying sensation of not being in control of my own mind, of my own sensations. I thought the crack in my mind had healed, yet it was still there, threatening to rob me of my sanity ever since I escaped the skeleton’s lair.

I punched myself several times under the questioning and worried eyes of the present sailors. The blood pressure on my temples threatened to rip my skin open and shot out like fountains. My vision swirled and blinked and a sour taste filled my mouth as images I thought lost blinked under my half-closed eyelids.

The destruction of the troupe that came to capture me was the clearest memory to date. After that, other fights followed. Running and running around the tiny, slithering and filthy streets of Blackwall. Being cornered and killing the stray adventurer or guard that believed he would a difference. The scores of civilians that ran as I appeared in front of their eyes and crossed over their heads to escape the closing gates of the city. The rain of arrows. The parties sent to chase me. And rage, rage, rage, and rage, until I was met with the pirates.

“They took…her” I replied, clawing at the sane bits of my mind that I could still call out to.

“What?” He asked.

“My sister…they took her, the people under the lord…the sword…they took her” I said, my voice a raspy growl, unpleasant even to my ears.

“Oh…-” Ali gasped, his face showing genuine concern and sadness for a brief second “- I mourn ya loss, but that still doesn’t-”

“Help me…take her back. She’s alive. I know it…she must be…she has to be” I spoke almost in a plea.

“You broke ya oath, betrayed my trust and now ya have the gall to ask for my help? I knew mages were insensible beings, caring only for what they wished but this…this is waaay too far!” He barked with clear irritation sharpening his voice.

“I’m not dead”

“What?” He asked, stepping forward and kicking my shoulder in order to raise my face to meet his gaze.

“If the oath was broken-” I replied with a wicked smile painting a half-moon of bloodied teeth across my face “- I’d be dead”

“Wait a damn second-” Ali gasped as surprise sparked a flame in his eyes “- ya got something! Ya found a way!”

“I…have” I smirked.

“Then tell me, don’t leave me hanging. What have ya learned that outweighs all the trouble ya caused?” He asked giddy like a child.

“I can give you the whole city-” I replied pushing my knees off the ground and finally standing up to Ali, face to face, my smirk fading as the draft of a plan began to take a solid shape “- Serve it on a platter, throne warm and all. I can sneak your men into the city, have them knocking right on the palace doors. Hell, if we’re lucky, they may even take a stroll directly in the lord’s gardens”

“...As much as I’d like to dream, that’s too good to be true. Where’s the catch?” He said, letting the excitement and surprise slide off him as he sat, thinking on his wooden chair.

“Catch is, it’ll be bloody. Forget about guards and adventurers’ casualties, civilians may also die…they most likely will. Your image once you take the throne will be awful. Plus most of the people there are from Bleza, they’ll hate your guts either way” I explained.

“Shit…-” Ali replied, scratching his beard and looking at me with a hunter’s fierceness in his gaze “- I hoped to do things clean. Kill the lord, claim the throne, and happily ever after”

“Then you were an idiot-” I barked “- You think Bleza would have left you alone? A port city like this? A literal diamond in the sand for commerce? Please, not even a kid would be that blind”

“Because what ya’re proposing isn’t? You want me to assault a city counting tens of thousands souls with just a hundred men? Ya are a deluded fool!” he shouted as he slammed both fists on his armrests.

“I don’t give a damn, honestly. I couldn’t care less about your dreams of conquest and your claims of birthright. They mean nothing to me…Once I tell you the information I gathered, our oath will be accomplished and I’ll be free to do as I please. I can rescue my sister and kill the lord…along with half the Blackwall. All you’d have left would be charred ruins, bloody streets, and my corpse”

“Ya are bluffing!” Shouted a man from behind Ali, eliciting the whole crew to shout in disdain at my remark.

“Oh, am I?” I asked fixing my gaze on the man that filled himself with false proudness, first high on his white horse, now shivering and averting his eyes under my gaze.

“A one-time spell…” Ali thought out loud.

“As deadly to the surroundings as it is to the caster” I finished the king’s thoughts.

The silence that followed was heavy and pregnant with expectation. Some were skeptical and wished for the king to refuse my words, maybe kill me on the spot for my outrageous behavior. Some felt fear for the fate of the city they longed for. Others saw in my words a chance, the spark they sought desperately. Yet all seemed futile in the eyes of the man in front of me. His gaze never leaving mine. Reading me, searching me. Whether it was for answers, for reassurances, curiosity, or lies, his eyes never spoke and the silence lingers for minutes.

“Can it really be done?-” Ali asked, his usually cocky and firm voice was now plagued with uncertainty and doubt “- Conquering the city with ya plan and saving ya sister in the process”

“If given the right distraction? Yes” I answered decisively.

“...Then state your terms” The king asked soliciting a wicked and victorious smile on my lips.