Out of the Sea (of Grass) and into the Frying Desert (Hayl)

[Jaspayia]

Timestamp: Fall 75, 511 AV Jasp was staring down at the ground with a perplexed look on her face, head cocked to the side. She couldn't be quite sure of what she was seeing. There were some unusual tracks in the sand. In the center was a long squiggle shape, that she was sure belonged to some sort of snake. However, perfectly following the squiggle on both the left and right, were four prints that were perfectly even, not staggered like with a wolf or jackal. She decided to follow this unusual trail for a good while, after all she had already managed to fill her waterskins, and get some food for later. And she still had much of Syna's pass to build shelter. She was up in the northern areas of Eyktol, having left Ahnatep previously, and was coming up on a routine check point. She continued to follow the trail which had never deviated from each other, her ebony eyes scanning the sands closely. Was it some sort of critter that had a long wavy tail? The trail led up a small rise, and noticed that the outer portions of the trail had grown longer and deeper, whereas the squiggly seemed to get lighter. This perplexed her greatly, for one portion appeared to have gotten heavier, and another the opposite. She walked up to the rise and peered over, just in time to see a viper sink its fangs into a large hare. The candleflame came to life in her mind. It wasn't one strange creature! It was a snake stalking a hare! She felt really, really dumb. But she shrugged it off, and made a mental note of the track types. She skirted the viper and its meal, and made her way up a slope, until she broke into a view of endless grass. She smiled, she was at the border. She kept walking for several chimes until she reached the final megalith on what she heard was a trail of them that spread all the way through the grass. She came to this spot at least once per season, to see if any travelers needed a guide, and had the resources to trade for it. She knew that after the harshness of the grasslands, they were more than eager for a guide when they saw the supposed dryness of the desert. The water was there, you just had to be smart enough to find it. She looked up at the megalith, which was about twice her height in rocky stone with plenty of holes and jutting features. Looking around to make sure no one was nearby, she reached up and grabbed a rock with her left hand. She looked down and saw a hole near her left foot. She slipped her toes in the hole, then looked up the rock face. There was a large crack further up, so she reached up with her right hand, while her right foot followed and took landing on a jutting chunk of rock. She kept this up until she reached the top. She pulled herself over the side, and sat there, catching her breath, her muscles resting. She now had a view of the entire area, and would see if anyone arrived from Cyphrus from a good ways off.

[Hayl]

It had only been a few hours he since he began to wonder into the desert. His body had stop sweating for sometime. He cursed himself for thinking of coin when the shop owner at the outpost where he had last stayed advised him to carry an extra skin of water. Never in his life did he need more than one skin of water to get him through the day. He drank the bladder in 4 hours. He tore his black shirt off sometime ago, letting the sun eat into his sensitive skin. He valued that shirt along with other nice things he acquired in his journeys, but allot of his valued items are scattered across the sand in his struggle to survive, or perhaps in a desperate rebellion to be something different than what he was. The dagger that was strapped to his arm remained. As much as he wanted to tare it off and throw it, he knew better and forced himself to think of other things. The satchel containing his remaining items drug a line beside his staggered tracks because he couldn’t bare to carry it anymore on his back, nor could he to part with it. His eyes fixed on nothing but the moving ground two or three feet ahead of him. Each time he looked up and saw how far he had to go, his spirit broke a little more. His feet would sink into the soft sand with each step the heat of the ground would cook his toes. “It’s about an 8 hour walk… for a man experienced with the sands.” That’s what the shop-owner had told him before he set out. He swore he had been walking for 10 hours. The sun never seemed to move though, just bake down on his head. He closed his eyes and continued to press on. The repetitive motion lulled him into an uncomfortable light sleep, but at least he was somewhere else. He felt a sea breeze and a hint of the salty air from Sunberth. The random yell or song chant of locals drunk with comfort. The metallic taste of the freshwater lake that was mounted by Ravok. A pretty girl who serves at an inn, he was familiar with, brought him a glass of water, so cool you can see it sweat onto her soft hands. It was an expensive glass, cost him everything he had, but he felt it was worth it for some reason, in fact he thought he was actually making a good deal. She even held it out for him to drink from her hands. He reached his head to kiss the glass and as soon as he made contact, he was treated with a mouthful of sand. He turned his head and spit the earth out. His mouth was as dry as the desert but the particles clung uncomfortably to the cracks in his teeth. He opened his eyes and realized he had fallen. Looking over at his feet he saw a bulging brown rock. It stood out like a beacon in the wasteland and when he glanced ahead of him to see his progress he realized the brown rock wasn’t the only one. The rock had many siblings, and some where huge. Perhaps Hayl’s mind was still playing with him and he was just seeing strange things again. Especially when he forced himself to his feet to look up one of the bigger rocks. He swore he saw a figure on it, but his vision wouldn’t stop climbing and the rock and its figure on top disappeared until all Hayl saw was the bleached sky.