Secrets revealed...

Having chased off the predator that was harassing their herd, the brothers return to the dying fire to find the old ashik gently snoring. They share a smile and settle down themselves. But just as they are about to lay down the old man snores so loudly that he wakes himself up.

A little surprised, he coughs and splutters and then seeing that his audience is still awake he says, “Now where was I?”

Everything in this desert is trying to kill me! Well almost everything.

Kank looked around at his new family. Thrown together as captured slaves, and then as cell mates, now the freed slaves were the closest thing to a family that he had ever had. Before being captured he had lived on the outskirts of a small village, but he had never been accepted there. They had called him Kank after the domesticated hive beasts and that was the only name he had ever known. But now he had others that were working with him to survive. He wasn’t’ on his own. He had a family.

Kank’s thoughts were interrupted by the small Mul, Balboa, who seemed to be trying to lift the spirits of the group. Spirits that had been dented by the harsh conditions, the unabating heat of the day, and dwindling water supplies. The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that we were lost. We had lost sight of the patches of old road that we had been following and now we had little idea of where we were headed. But Balboa’s spirit seemed undiminished;

As long as we have our feet on the rock we will get there!

For the third, or fourth time, we climb a rocky outcrop to try and spot anything other than the undulating barren badlands. And for once, there is something in the distance that stands out. We can see a low lying thicket of what looks like vegetation in the distance, we agree that where there is life there must be water, and so we agree to sneak towards it in case it is inhabited. I say sneak, but together we seemed to make more noise that a box full of angry baazrags. I guess that we are all tired, hungry, and thirsty.

As we draw closer Balboa sees what he thinks is a reflection of light from the twin moons glinting off of water in the centre of the thicket. We were right in our assumption. We edge closer and can finally make out that the thicket appears to be a tangle of curling vines, each branch is covered in a multitude of long thorns. I bend down and pick up a large stone and hurl it towards the thicket, fully expecting either it or something in it to move. Even though the thicket is roughly half a mile in diameter, I almost miss. But the stone does crash into the tangle of vines and nothing moves.

Scar takes this as a sign that it is safe to approach and gets to within five foot so that she can take a much closer look under the light of the twin moons. She confirms that it is a plant that she has never encountered before, but that it does just seem to be a plant. We begin to skirt around the outer edge of the thicket looking for a way into the centre and the water that we believe is there. A hundred yards on we discover what looks like an animal run, no more than three foot wide, leading in under the foliage. I look around for tracks and discover a number of old tracks of small, quadruped lizards with a long tail. Most likely more baazrags. And that means food as well as water.

I heft my obsidian battleaxe and try to clear a wider pathway through the thicket. The vines cut easily under the sharp blade of the axe and I start to clear a pathway towards the centre. Scar and Balboa follow me in, leaving Arthur, Miloch and Ka-Reen to keep watch from the top of the animal run. We are halfway to the centre when I have to pause, normally this level of work would not even phase me but it has been a couple of days without adequate food and water and I tire quickly. While I am catching my breath Balboa shouts a word of warning from the rear of our line.

The thicket is closing in behind us. It is regrowing what I have just cut down at amazing speed, we quickly decide to cut our way back out before we are stranded. I throw my axe to Balboa and he starts to swing, but unaccustomed to the weapon, he makes slow going. The walls of our pathway continue their unstoppable advance, and the thorns of the vines begin to dig into our flesh. It is like being in the jaws of a giant lizard. All pretence of being quiet goes, and we start shouting for help.

Arthur, of the Mul-Ard clan, starts to cut his way into us and eventually he and Balboa manage to free 

us from the vicious thorn vines. Both Scar and myself look like we have been used as pincushions, but I am fortunate that my armour meant that only my legs were damaged. Scar is bleeding from a number of wounds all over her body, so Ka-Reen uses what little resources we have to pluck the thorns out and stop her bleeding. Unfortunately, that means that by the time she gets to pluck all of the thorns from my legs there is little to help salve my pain.

Now very much suspicious of the vegetation, I get Balboa to watch the ‘water’ while I lob a stone into it. The stone lands right in the ‘water’ but as Balboa watches, it does plop and sink like a stone would in real water, rather it lands and sinks slowly as something would in soft sand. It isn’t water. And our efforts have cost us. Downhearted, we continue our journey under the twin moons.

As the sun is starting to light the sky below the horizon we begin to look for shelter so that we can rest in shade through the daylight hours. We find a large rock pile that provides some deep shade and before we settle down Ka-Reen insists on giving us all a check over. We are all suffering from the effects of not having enough food and water, but travelling at night has helped with that. Ka-Reen makes sure that everyone’s feet are cared for, with the exception of me as I have the guards boots, and re-ties their foot wrappings. Scar is looking worse for wear, and Ka-Reen spends a lot of time checking all of her wounds. When she finishes she continues to look concerned.

Just before the blazing hot sun appears over the horizon we hunt and forage for food. Between us we find enough to feed two of us for a day, but we split it evenly between the six of us and spend the sunlight hours sleeping fitfully in the shade dreaming of food and water.

As the sun begins to set beyond the rocky barrens we begin to move once again, a few of us head out once again to forage for food while the rest head up to the top of the rock pile that we sheltered under for the day to see if they can locate the direction that we should be moving in. Miloch and I discover enough to feed one person for a day, and again we split it between the six of us. It is barely enough to stave off the hunger, but we are at least getting some nourishment.

From their vantage point Balboa and Scar scan the area, the one thing that stands out is a small collection of cacti clustered together in the distance. Again we decide that where there is life there must be water, and so we head for the cacti field. Once we are closer it becomes obvious that there are three distinct variations of cactus within the cacti field. One is a tall, upright cactus with multiple limbs and large claw like thorns. The second is a low round, ball like purple cactus. And the final one of the trio looks like a tangle of thorn covered vines forming small tumble weed like balls of cactus.

Arthur informs us that he is aware of the final of these cacti, he tells us not to disturb it as it houses a very long, worm like creature that will fire out and attempt to entangle us. We decide to attempt to hit the larger of the cacti, the tall multi limbed cactus, with sling shots to see if all is as it appears to be. Scar, Balboa, Miloch, and I all gather up a handful of stones and begin spinning our slings. We loose our volley of rocks and one of them hits the cacti firmly, it bounces off of the cactuses fibrous trunk. We all reload and sling again.

This time however, both Scar and Miloch are wild with their shots and both manage to hit different tangle thorn cacti. Quicker than the eye can follow, a finger width strand shoots from the centre of each cacti. One of them narrowly misses Scar, but the second one strikes Miloch and within a second he is wrapped in multiple loops of the rope like worm. I drop my sling and grasp my obsidian axe ready to swing, but Miloch is struggling so much that I miss with my first swing. I firmly plant my feet and swing once more severing the worm several feet away from Miloch.

I had expected the worm to drop to the floor dead, but it continues to wrap itself about Miloch, and by now it is wrapped tightly around his head and is blocking off his airways. Scar and I step in and grab the worms body where it is wrapped around Miloch’s mouth, we pull it away and Balboa slices it free with his knife. Eventually the worm stops constricting and we are able to cut Miloch free of its coils. The body of the worm seems strong and flexible, and so we gather up its remains and use them to make bandoliers to carry our meagre possessions.

Eventually we all step up again and start swinging our slings, this time our target is the small purple ball cactus. Eventually one of us hits hit and we can see from a distance that there appears to be some liquid seeping from the damage caused. We head in for a closer look and there is definitely a large amount of liquid within the cactus. Scar sticks her obsidian blade into the cactus and withdraws it, it is covered in a clear liquid, she sniffs it and says that it does not appear to have an odour. She is just about to dip her finger in it when I remember Ka-Reen’s concern over Scar’s health.

I stop Scar, and tell her that I will do it. I dip the tip of my finger in the liquid on Scar’s blade and then taste it. The reaction is instant. My stomach cramps up, my body starts to shake, and then I start to retch. I’m retching for two minutes, but it seems like a lifetime. It is like all of the liquid in my body has gone, I am dehydrated and dizzy. Scar looks down at me kneeling on the floor and says;

Have you finished yet?

Family! I manage to sit, without being sick again, and the others continue to focus their efforts on the tall cactus. Eventually, after they hit it with several sling stones, there is a mighty cracking sound and the cactus topples to the ground.

As the others head in for a closer inspection I manage to crawl my way over to join them. The inside of the cactus is pulpy and fibrous, but everyone is aware of what happened to me and so are loath to test it. I am so hungry and dehydrated that I don’t care anymore. I again dip my finger in and lick it, bracing myself for the pain that never comes. Feeling emboldened, I scoop out a small handful of the pulp and eat it. It is bland and tastes of nothing, but after several minutes when there are no adverse effects I scoop out more and eat my fill. My fill, it seems, amounts to all of the pulp from the single cactus. Everyone agrees that we should wait until light to try and harvest more of the tall cacti, that way we will be able to avoid the tangle thorn.

As we are settling down, Ka-Reen gives Scar another once over. Once again she looks very concerned, but this time she closes her eyes and concentrates. A second later she collapses, and it is only Scar’s lightning quick reflexes that allow her to catch Ka-Reen. We rush over to see what happened and are astounded to see that a lot of Scar’s wounds have healed, leaving only small scars behind. Ka-Reen can heal psionically, but it is clearly draining for her. We make her comfortable and leave Arthur and Miloch guarding her while the rest of us go in search of tall cacti to harvest.

It is not long before Balboa discovers another of the tall cacti, this one with three limbs. Not wanting to waste time with the slings, I heft my obsidian battleaxe and step up to the trunk. I swing my axe and get a resounding hit. Imagine my surprise when one of its limbs returns my blow. Striking me hard in the leg. It’s other limbs then try to strike me, but fortunately they miss. I hobble out of reach and hope that it doesn’t follow. I am relieved that it doesn’t.

Why is everything in this desert trying to kill me?

Having learnt our lesson we resort to slings. And using these we are able to bring down another five of the tall cacti, enough for everyone to consume the pulp of one cacti. Everybody eats their fill, all except Ka-Reen who is still unconscious. Finally we have enough food to feed us all for one day, but with everything trying to kill us, I’m not sure that has improved our life expectancy.