The desert was laughing at her. Echoes on the dunes and rocky crops of stone. They chirped, wailed and cackled. Just animal cries, she kept telling herself. "Just animal cries. Dogs, probably. Vultures, leapers, scavengers - a skath or two if I'm unlucky enough. Yes, that's likely it. Predators on the prowl. Hunting. Tasty flesh. Speaking of flesh, I've only got a few day's rations left. Ran out of wine a week ago. Just muddled water. Think it's starting to get- ugh- stagnant. Not sure if- huh that constellation looks like a duck. Tail's all wonky, though. Funny duck." She'd lost track of how long she had been wandering around in the desert of Shevasse without knowing where in Vasquera she really was. It had been weeks since she'd last been able to resupply. She'd become a right master at conserving what little she could carry in the years she'd been out on the proverbial road doing not-even-she-knew-what for Jolee. The goddess only ever spoke in whims. She knew them to be more than just her own mortal wants and needs because of the weight of them. They rung like bells in her head, and all she wanted was bleeding sanctuary!

"I can't even stop to rest, can I?! I do I die, probably. One of 'em things cawing nearby'll sneak on over and take a nibble. I taste ruddy awful! You can leave me- actually I probably taste like salted meat. Wha- hm. Shite." Just mentioning eating was making her a mite peckish and that was a new level of nag. As her fingers fumbled at the flap of her food pouch there came a rumbling through the sand. She halted dead away and looked around excitedly, her eyes training in on the sand as it rolled and flowed like water receding from a beach, "Only the water's all sand. Sand on sand. Irony abound, I'd reckon," she went right on murmuring, but in a brighter voice fit to match her face. Catching a plume of dust cascading up into the air, she whooped and snapped into a sprint after the shape moving beneath the earth. "It's faster than I am! Whoo-hoo! It's a lot faster, and it's, ah.. it's leaving me behi- hey, hey, he-wait up you cloud trail leaving thing! I'm! Right! He-e-e-ere!" Not paying enough attention to where her feet were landing, she tumbled head over heels down the slope of a dune and landed in an eruption of sand.

Coughing, sputtering, cursing and laughing Noa got right back up and shook off the dust- stumbling around like a newborn calf taking her first clumsy steps. But, then she was right back at the running again because this was a break in the monotony of sand, sand, sand and ooh - look - more sand! And, so.. well.. yeah, she ran. Her chase eventually led her right to the crown of a dune where light shone in the sky, accenting a maelstrom of clouds better than a trained artist's brush could ever hope to do. And there underneath it all spun a mighty figure in all its horror. Rolling black spheres, gears and a rock. "A rock!" She exclaimed, pumping her fists exuberantly into the air. "I found a r- wait, what's a rock doing-" She finally noticed the people just nearby with their horses - four of 'em - and flashed them collectively a single smile, "Oh, hey. You come to see the rock, too? I don't know what it is, but it's pretty, uhm.. pretty? Bright." Huffing and screwing her face into a pout, "Got anything to drink?"

Agnes hopped onto the back of a wagon making its way out of the city. Tremors rippled through the ground and she felt the wheels shake and creak under her. She closed and opened up her gauntleted fingers knowing full well that this wagon was not going to making it very far. Surveying the faces of the other passengers, she could make out that they were worried but not for the same reasons. The mass exodus from Gaudis had not gone unnoticed, to say the least. There was no way the starving desert predators would not be aware of such a rare opportunity. Fresh meat.

The sound of splintering wood and piercing screams filled the void of the silent desert winds and the low rumbling of the caravans. Clutching the side of the tarp, she poked her head out and witnessed the immediate destruction of a wagon that couldn’t be any more than twenty-five meters ahead of them. A select number of skath had pounced on it, tearing both its structure and its passengers to shreds within seconds. A young girl managed to drag herself out of the wreckage, clothes torn and bloody with eyes frozen in shock, her body quivering. Weeping quietly, she took firm grip on a hand sticking out of the debris, stifling her tears as the skath picked through the other end of the ruined wagon. Mustering her strength, she pulled hard and landed on her rear, realizing in horror that she had just taken a severed arm. Swallowing her pain, she gently interlocked the fingers of the dismembered hand with her own, tears streaming. She held it tightly to her chest and screamed, attracting the attention of the nearby predators.

Pushing the pieces of scrap away, the ones that weren’t already feeding had circled their way around the wagon, baring their salivating teeth and slowly advancing on their stationary prey. Agnes knew it was none of her business. She didn’t know what it was, but a strange force within her compelled her to move, to do something. As she stood up from her seat, all she could do was helplessly watch as one of them suddenly leaped onto the crying girl, snapping its head forward and ripping her apart, blood splashing across its maw. It snarled as other, smaller skath approached, aggressively claiming the quarry as its own and feasting hungrily on the freshly made corpse.

Her fingers bit into the wagon’s tarp and she reseated herself, brushing her hair to one side. The others sharing the wagon with her were on edge now, whispering amongst each other in fear and excitement. Agnes crossed her arms and closed her eyes. Was there nothing she could have done? Did she really care enough to have made a move?

A leaper bolted in from the side and hooked the neck of one of the horses drawing the wagon, putting all progress to a complete halt. Some of the passengers shrieked, and that was enough to grab notice from some of the skath poking around the other wagon. Agnes jumped out from the back, keeper her distance and making room as the exact same thing occurred. She didn’t know what led some of them to believe that it was safer inside even when they had clearly witnessed what had happened to the other wagon.

The vehicle buckled and broke down as it was attacked and only a few were able to scramble out of it alive. The survivors must’ve known she was an enforcement agent of some sort because they began to huddle behind her, though not too close, thankfully. She checked her gauntlets, making sure they had been fitted tightly enough. She’d never had to fight these things before and was not too keen on making it a first, preparing herself nonetheless.

The closest one jumped at her with its mouth wide open and Agnes responded with an attack of her own. “Acht’ji vahk zau eras!” She countered with a quick straight, unleashing a tight spiral of pure force into the strike. Massive waves of pressure expanded at the point of impact and the resounding shockwave must’ve rippled past its hard exterior and destroyed the brain because it remained still after getting sent knocked back. The sand sprayed and her body shifted back a few inches, faint strings of steam rising from her right gauntlet. She hadn’t even hit the half-ogre that hard in subduing him, but the point here was to send a clear-as-day message to the rest of the skath and that meant no holding back: “Don’t fuck with me.”

She let her arms drop to her sides, a vicious spark in her eyes as she stared down the other predators. They lowered their heads and let out low growls, gradually turning tail and making their way back to the other wagon. Her fist stung like hell now, not to mention the fact that she had expended a lot more of her energy than she needed for that punch. She’d have to wait it out a bit before she did something reckless again. She silently cursed under her breath for not having thought about the fact that there might be more where that came from. That wasn’t the first time she’d blown out a massive chunk of her reserves in a heat of the moment attack, and it was getting to be a really bad habit. She shook out the tensed muscles in her hands and took a cursory look around, gazing into stunned faces.

“The last horse is mine,” she said absently. “The rest of you can walk.” Shooing away the leaper, Agnes unbound the remaining horse, which was now understandably shaken. Saddling up on it, she was getting ready to move out when she noticed another rider out in the distance, grinning to herself. Trista. Looks like there'd be someone she was going to be catching up with real soon.

Well....that was different. The newcomer certainly had an...interesting...introduction. If his memory served him right, and he liked to think it did, she was a vida. A member of one of the Three Empires - which? He wasn't sure. All that was important that she was here and that meant another soul to worry about. Adrian had half a mind to simply leave with Nimba in tow - these peoples' lives were not his responsibility nor was he theirs. Their lives meant little to him by comparison.

Yet, despite the situation, Adrian couldn't help but chuckle at this woman's words. Stepping up to her, "I'm afraid not, my dear. Though, I'm sure we can quench your thirst later. For now, we must leave for safer parts. We are not welcome here," he locked eyes to every member of the assembled cast, directing his words to them all, "We've been here far too long." Looking back at the fair vida, "I will see to it that your thirst is satisfied in due time, miss." Though his posture commanding and his tone serious and direct, Adrian sensed a bit of flirtatious flare creeping into his tone. It was damn well instinctual to flirt with a pretty woman by this point. Call it an defense mechanism or, more aptly, a reflex.

Before further words could be exchanged, the violent shaking of the ground intensified, making the horses stumble and he (and everyone else) fall to their knees. It felt like a damned earthquake. Growling, Adrian spat in the sand. Cursing fate for bringing him to this gods forsaken land. His frustration was getting the better of him but he reined it in. He had to remain calm if he hoped to get Nimba, himself and - much to his ire - the rest of them out of there. Still, "By Ninous' bosom, what now?" It was a light curse but his nerves felt better for uttering it. He noticed several new people fleeing but it didn't put his mind at all at ease. A token few out of hundreds meant nothing.

And then, with an audible tearing, the earth split open to unleash a monstrosity of legends. A beast of the earth not seen in hundred of years now unbound from whatever slumber it once held to meet the floating entity in the sky.

A Hareton Worm.

The sheer size of the thing was staggering, what could only be a small part of the worm was visible, yet it was larger than a healthy chunk of the city. For a moment the ground stopped shaking as the gargantuan worm seemed to stare at the Monolith before letting lose an deep bellow - what sounded like a twisted version of a whale's call - so different than the alien symphony of the Monolith. The glowing orange marks scattered across its gray skin seemingly brightening in challenge.

Adrian could do nothing but watch as the two entities faced off - the Hareton Worm quelling in anger and challenge, a stark contrast to the Monolith's cool indifference. With a sharp roar the Worm shook the earth as it charged. Crashing through the city, annihilating everything in its path as it approached the floating entity. So many lives silenced in its destructive wake and yet Adrian could hear no panic, see no one else attempt to flee from the new threat.

The Worm then pounded itself against the Monolith's magnificent sandstone marker with such force that Adrian could hear the impact from where he stood...only to crash back down into the city - crushing buildings and people alike as if they where nothing. As for the Monolith? As far as he could tell the Worm's charge had had no effect at all, it simply sat where it appeared like an unmovable pillar. Its only movement the ever present rolling of gears and circling of its stone spheres.

Unwavering, the Worm crashed itself against the Monolith again and again. Destroying more and more of the city as it assaulted the ever quiet Monolith. After minutes of this the beast latched onto the Monolith's pillar before snaking it's way around it - seemingly intent on crushing the Monolith under the sheer force of it's vise. And still...nothing.

Moments past and finally....the Monolith sang. One long, steady and painfully deep note that seemed to sink into Adrian's very soul. It hurt him, made his ears bleed and yet....it was calming. As if preparing him for what's to come. In the back of his mind he felt another presence, different from the alien Monolith; protective. It seemed to wrap itself around him as a mother would protect her child from a coming threat.

At long last the Monolith's song ended and with it came the customary silence. No, it was more than that. Time itself seemed to stop in its wake. Even the once ever-moving Hareton Worm was still, wrapped around the stone obelisk. The entire world stopped by the Monolith's song.

And for what felt like a sickeningly long period of time, but could have only been moments, the stillness remained. The floating entity seemingly the only one allowed motion. And finally...as if the unknown being bored of the silence and the stillness...Adrian heard waves.

The sound of ocean waves! Thoughts of his past flooded his mind, memories of playing with his mother and sisters at the sea, sparring with friends on the beach, making love as the sea breeze swept by. It made Adrian long for home. But..but how could this be? They were so very far away from the ocean.

And then dawned a horrific realization: That was not the sound of waves hitting the shore. No, no, it was the falling of sand.

The Hareton Worm - the city of Gaudis itself - was breaking into sand. Flesh, blood, rock and bone. All fell in glittering piles of sand. It was almost beautiful; the last rays of the setting sun and the unearthly glow of the Monolith's gears reflecting off the falling grains in glittering majesty. Beautiful. Terrible; horrifying...but beautiful.

It took more than ten minutes for it all to settle to the ground and for more than ten minutes he and everyone else watched. Watched as dozens, hundreds! of years of history and the might of one of the world's wonders fall into dust. Thousands of lives - gone. There was nothing left but sparkling sand.

And all that remained was the Monolith. Resting in the air in indifferent alien majesty. A force of such absolute power that for a moment he thought even the gods were looking upon the scene in awe. The sands below reflecting light up upon it in a glorious display.

The Monolith's song a gift and a curse. The symphony of the cosmos to part the silence of the grave.

Trista found herself looking back toward the city. Noise permeated the air again, this time several notches more powerful than the last. She stared unblinkingly as the town crumbled, a calm stillness in her eyes as she watched. She did not have many fond memories of that place and felt nothing for those who had remained, unable or unwilling to flee. Though it was not a common sight, the spectacle was not enough to keep her interest. Even with the Monolith’s last, most resounding note, all she could gather was that her initial fear had completely escaped from her system. What spark of humanity that had entered her mind vanished and she made no note of it, simply turning her head away. Things were as they should be.

Agnes rubbed her fingers together and squinted, touching her ear again. A shiver tingled her body and the words to describe the feeling seemed out of her reach. She only grinned slightly to herself, wiping the blood from her hands. “Now look what that stupid worm’s gone and done. Here’s to hoping this doesn’t mean my brain’s leaking out from my ears, because the last one I came across didn’t let people off so easily.”

“A Monolith?” Trista asked, her gaze shifting to the enforcer.

“At least that’s what I think it was, couldn’t say for sure myself,” she shrugged. “It was all just pure speculation at that point. For all I know, we could’ve been wasted on Vynard mead and threw each around imagining the whole thing, but the image of an enormous glowing face with wings and an array of floating stones surrounding it doesn’t wash away so easily, especially not with more alcohol. On another note, I don’t think I’ll be missing this place very much. This place is too damn hot and it’s hard to find any good food around at a reasonable price. And what the hell happened to you anyway? You look like you tried to force yourself through barbed wire.”

Trista had stopped listening halfway, inspecting the badge she had plucked from her armor, turning it over to the back. Were it not for the inscribed runes that helped her stay in one piece as a Deadman, she would’ve gladly tossed it as far as her strength would permit. Instead, she pocketed it for safe keeping. No need to cause trouble by wandering around an unfamiliar place and letting everyone know that she was essentially a walking corpse. Some people could be very edgy.

---

Alexa Morrow

---

Although she welcomed Kryssis's arms around her, but Alexa's joy was short lived. Chevalier was not easily frightened, but he bucked upward at the ground shaking and whined at it as well, that was how Alexa knew whatever was coming was bad, only to have her fears monumentally confirmed as the worm-like creature burst out from the ground. It was enormous, it was destructive, it was unlike anything she had seen before. She had no words as she watched it destroy a city of thousands, she could not speak as she watched the god-like entity wrap around the vile monolith. And then the sound returned, worse than ever before, burrowing into her brain, stabbing, biting, clawing at her insides as it dug deep into her psyche.

It was black at first, as her eyes were closed, however, she could no longer smell the sands, she could only smell alcohol, the monolith now had full access to her mind, to her senses, everything. The alcohol was a cruel, and familiar scent. She knew what was to happen even before she opened her eyes, and when she did, she slanted them, monotonously. She saw Alistair, a flask still in his hand and the other rising towards her face. He rubbed her cheek slowly, before Alexa slapped it away. He moved it back, forcefully grabbing her chin. She felt the knife in her hands, unsure of how it got there, and was prepared to stab herself once more, but instead she thought for a moment. She felt her body shake as Alistair dropped the flask and brought his other hand to her neck.

She looked up into his eyes and spoke, "No," She stabbed him in the stomach and then screamed, "NO!" She kicked him on his back then pounced on him, bringing the knife up she thrust it down into his face, repeatedly stabbing him in his face, screaming, "Why did I kill all of those people for you!? Why!? I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" She repeated, "I hate you!" over and over and over again as she made his face unrecognizable. Blood gushing out onto the floor, mixing with her tears as they fell from her face, continually screaming, "I hate you!"

She continued this until his face was an unrecognizable mass of bone, blood, and brains. She got up, her small, teenage, arms aching as the knife fell from her grasp. She was breathing heavily and smiled as she glazed down at her work. She had finally done it, done what she couldn't do when she was this age. She closed her eyes and took in the smell of death only to have it replaced by alcohol again. This time, when she reopened her eyes she was lying on her back, the face of her uncle looking into her own. He slowly brought his head down to her neck and started kissing her, she was even smaller than she was before, she hated it. She proceeded to do what she did before, and bit out her father's throat, tasting her uncle's blood in her mouth. She felt his heavy body fall down atop her small frame, the adrenaline in her body allowing her to push her father's body aside, his blood still leaving his body. She watched him, his face changing between her uncle and her father. But she knew deep down that it was her uncle... right?

In the corner of the room she saw one of the street urchin's from Almraven telling the story of how her mother killed her father, then married her father's brother. It was curt, short, concise and she repeated it over and over and over again as the face of her father contorted into her uncle's, then back to her father's without ever changing shape. She screamed and charged towards the street urchin, using her adrenaline-pumped body to smashed the girl's head against the cobblestone walls of their home repeatedly, the blood and brains leaving her body. She threw the girl on the floor and pulled out her knife, again, not knowing from where. She then proceeded to cut the girl's face off, trying to remove whatever mask it was that she wore to reveal her own face underneath it all, all that was there was muscle. She screamed as her mental defenses broke, she screamed as her old memories returned, she screamed as life itself seemed to die as she realized what it was she did.

She didn't justly kill her mother for killing her father. No. That wasn't what happened at all... She slowly walked out of the room, she saw her mother crying at the table, and she smiled. She didn't smile pleasantly, or happily, no... she smiled fiendishly...

The memory ceased just in time, Alexa returning to reality only to lean over into Chevalier's mane and cry, she slipped her arms around his neck to support herself as the tears fell. She could hear Gaudis being demolished and was too wrapped up in her own mind to care... too wrapped up to care about the countless dead... to wrapped up to care about anything but herself...

That ungodly quaking threatened to throw them all to the ground, Chevalier bucking and whinnying fearfully as it passed underneath them and sped on, aimed straight for Gaudis. Kryssis held on tighter to Alexa, eyes trained on plumes of dust spraying from the size and speed of the thing alone. She watched in a kind of awe and disgust the worm as it lifted up from the ground and began its dance to kill the Monolith. A more pathetic and vain exercise she had never seen. Every slam of its enormous body against the sandstone marker echoed like crashing waves across the dunes, she could imagine feeling the force of each impact. In a final bid to slay the entity, the worm coiled up around it to crush and constrict in its terrible grip. This.. apparently had the effect of pissing off the Monolith.

It.. took Kryssis a moment to realize what she'd been feeling. The bones in her body ached terribly, her fleshed crawled and her ears felt like they were leaking. She took her fingers to her ear, and they came away sticky with blood. That was when she finally understood what was causing this.. a note so low she'd barely been able to register it. A mournful, beautiful, awful song that culminated in waves. She could almost imagine the cool sea breeze, the spray and the scent in the air.. the warm sand underneath her feet... But she had never been to a beach before. Never seen an ocean. These melted away with Gaudis, dissolving to nothing but grains that could slip between her fingers and cascade down into piles on the ground. Billions among billions. Reduced to oblivion. Meaninglessly erased. She felt a little sick as she watched it. Something about the thought of all those lives just.. swept away without a care or pause.. it made her uneasy. It made her want to retch. She had no ties to that place, and every reason to hate it.. but still, something made her almost mourn those deaths. Almost.

Alexa's crying caught her attention, the girl fell out of Kryssis' arms and hugged the horse's neck as she wept. The Wyvernjack screwed her face in confusion.. it had to have been the Monolith's doing, and she had no idea what it was the girl saw - or thought she saw - that could affect her like that. She also didn't know what to do about it other than let her sob. This was one of those alien moments for Kryssis. She'd seen children cry, and that was it. She even remembered doing it herself when she was very young. They'd always been beaten to make them stifle their tears and the noises of their fear and their pain - her fear and her pain. Whips and bundles of sticks meant to cut, slice and cause sharp stabs of stinging torment rather than brute force which would break bones rather than spirits. Recalling what Alexa had said about the meaning of a hug - but feeling too awkward to do that - she settled for simply laying a hand on the girl's shoulder and gripping just enough to hopefully let her know she was still there. It was all she could do, and it shamed Kryssis she could do no more.