else, a decent fight would be fun"

With this determined, Il'Tak walks toward the mounted figure.

Simply walking up to the figure in the distance, Il'Tak notices the figure on the left turning, thinning as if turning its head towards the orc. If it is an enemy, it's not immediately charging at you like any foolish human might do. Instead, at a guess, it is instead observing Il'Tak.

Closing in, Il'Tak figures out why.

Past the heavy dust winds, he sees a dim light on the yellow eyes of the mount. Its anatomy resembles that of a horse, but its fur and hair are replaced with hardened brown scales. Its body and legs are bulkier, with the legs in particular being double in size from that of a horse's. It's hooves are instead four large pincer-like talons on each leg which tear into the sand to keep its grip. The mount's eyes look at Il'Tak with a focused and wary glare.

On the mount is a more familiar humanoid. With thick facial features and small tusks from his mouth, the rider is undeniably an orc. Unlike Il'Tak, this orc is brown-skinned, well-toned and muscled but thin in structure. In contrast with the hunter's thick furs, the rider instead wears a loose tunic and pants of heavy cloth. His eyes covered by goggles protecting him from the dusty winds. On his back is a giant spear, too big for most humans to wield and too heavy for most to effectively use. Sand cakes the spear's bladed end as if it stuck to now-dried blood.

The Walker looks down at the green-skinned orc. "You're a long way from home," the desert orc says, thankfully speaking in orcish. The voice is rough, but jovial. "What is an orc from Aijur Forest doing all the way here?"

'Well... it's an orc,' Il'Tak thinks as he approaches. Finding one was the hard part of this endeavor. Now it's just a matter of finding the rest.

"There are no more orcs in the Aijur forest," Il'Tak speaks, fighting to keep his tone even, "All have been taken by humans using magic and trickery."

Taking a deep breath, Il'Tak gives a shallow bow, "I have come to deliver a warning, in case they should come this way... and to see if any will join me in my blood oath to set things right"

The desert orc fidgets slightly on his mount after the shallow bow of Il'Tak. The googles-wearing one's body shifted at the mention of magic, as if the desert orc takes a great interest... or is incredibly wary. "G-Gone?" His jovial tone cracks slightly with an ounce of disbelief. "We haven't heard from Aijur recently," he then says quietly to himself, switching to a more agitated voice before muttering, "Oh cursed Nadirech; what trickery did you cause this time?"

The desert orc adjusts his body, turning his chest so that most of his body is facing Il'Tak. "You'll have to speak to the chieftains about this. Come." He points off to the northeast. "Night is almost coming up and you don't want to be wandering at that time." The brown-skinned orc's ability to tell the time of day is slightly proven from observation. The slight blue hue of the sky is beginning to fade to a darker color. By night, the endless dust storms are likely to cloud out the stars in the sky and leave almost no light to see.

On his mount, the Walker turns around and begins slowly walking toward the pointed direction. The mount's talons slam down onto the sand as it walks. "So," the desert orc says,, returning to a casual, jovial tone and expecting Il'Tak to follow. "What do they call you in Aijur?"

Il'Tak grimaces as the thought of talking with the chiefs. While he reveres them as much as the next orc (f they weren't revered, they would be long dead)... Il'Tak isn't much of a "people person".

Baator's pits, he spent most days without hearing a single word. While Il'Tak could divine the intentions of a buffalo or wolf with the most subtle of body language, words were an insufferable mire that trapped the foolish in layers of meaning and subtext.

Also, Il'Tak hadn't heard too many words worth saving.

"I am Il'Tak," responds the orc, "the last free son of Aijur"

Shadow of Dura.

"Hunter and tracker"

Too weak to raid or guard.

"Adventurer, now, I guess"

They torched everything.

Il'Tak forces a smile as he struggles to shake the vision of a ruined village from his mind.

Everything is going to be okay.

It has to be.

The Walker gives a genuine smile back to Il'Tak. There's something both comforting and painful about seeing a desert orc smile at him. It's not one of the orcs from Aijur. It's similar and yet lacking the same, easy feeling when it's by an orc whose kind lives far from the forest. "It's a good name, Il'Tak," the desert orc responds. "We won't need to go far, Should be just over these next few mounds."

The sky above accelerates its shift to the night blue sky after a short walk. Visibility quickly starts becoming a problem as the small grains of sand flying into the face of Il'Tak becomes almost invisible. Eventually, the only source of light left are a small series of yellow glows in the distance. The desert orc eases his shoulders on the mount as the two clear the final mound. "Just in time," he says with some relief.

The Walkers' base can be described as ruins scavenged into a temporary home. The two orcs enter under a large, partly-damaged arc made of old stone and sand. The site site appear to have once been like a small settlement built upon grand buildings of violet stone. Few of these seem to remain standing as of tonight; Il'Tak can make out roughly four of them, one having taller walls than the rest. Cloth and leather strips pad along some of the open top and sides of the ruins to block out the endless sandstorm. There's no lights within any of these ruins and it's impossible to check inside without going in directly. The constant sand and dust storm also makes it agonizingly difficult to make out any scents or smella.

"We're few in number," the Walker says, noting the few ruins around. Even if these makeshift buildings are large, there couldn't be room for more than several dozen members. The Walkers seem so miniscule in numbers compared to the orcs of Aijur. "I will inform the chieftains of your arrival, Il'Tak. Either way, I don't suggest you set out until the morning. You can meet 'em now or I can show you a tent in there," he points to the biggest of the ruins, "for the night." The scout gets off his mount; the horse-like creature gives a small hiss before walking over to the second-biggest set of ruins.

If Il'Tak has any questions, now may be a good time to ask if he'd rather ask a scout instead of the leaders of the Walkers.

Il'tak takes in the gentle air of night as the the cold sand cools the soles of his feet. The company of kin puts Il'Tak at ease, though he cannot help but notice that this orc seems to be on edge. Were the scouts of Aijur always this nervous? Even as he thinks back, imagining their camouflaged leathers, Il'Tak can't quite remember their faces.

The sight of the ruins surprises Il'Tak, if just for a second. While the orcs were likely using them as a temporary camp, someone must have tried to live out here in the distant past. What were they hoping to eat and drink without moving from place to place? Whatever the builders were planning, it clearly didn't end well for them.

"Thank you for your hospitality," Il'Tak mutters, nodding his head in a shallow bow, "I would rather meet your chieftains in the morning so I may tell the full, long story. While I am no skjald, there is much that must be said."

Taking a few steps toward the ruins, Il'Tak stops short, "Blarsk, almost forgot! As a stranger in these lands, what dangers should I watch for? I am fit to fight and die if we are attacked in the night, though I would rather know what I'm fighting."

The Walker, taking off his goggles and gloves and rubbing his eyes with his left hand, gives a small chuckle. "You're a lot kinder than I figured, given all that's happened to you." Beneath the goggles, Il'tak sees the desert orc's surprisingly young-looking eyes and an appreciated smile. "Appreciate the thanks. I don't usually get any from other orcs. Then again, scouting's a thankless job."

The Walker leads Il'tak over to the largest ruins, answering the now-adventurer's questions about the sandsea. "I wouldn't worry about being attacked. We're a small few but we keep a dozen scouts on rotation; I'm done my part for the day." The desert orc gives a small shrug of his shoulders. "But if you wanna know, there's not much more than the sandsea's usual beasts. Chimeras are the worst you'll find just walking randomly. You'll probably also see a large sandworm if you get near any sand pits, but you'll notice those far off unless you're walking in the dark."

Approaching the part-damaged arch-shaped entrance, the desert orc looks out behind him briefly before continuing. "We once had to watch out for humans from Lorestal just north of the sandsea. But it's been ten years since we've seen a knight from that abandoned city." The Walker gives a small sigh of clear relief; evidently, he's not missing past enemies.

Pulling out his large spear, the desert orc mounts it on the wall just inside the ruins. Walking in, Il'tak sees that the place, beneath the darkness, is half-buried in sand and dust. Old, stone stairs poke out from the ground leading up to a balcony that was supposed to be the building's second floor. From the balcony, there are two entrances, one from the left and the right side of the wall respectively.

The Walker leads Il'Tak through the right entrance; rusted iron hinges indicate that a door had once existed here. Inside is a small room; most of the roof is covered by the heavy cloth keeping more sand and dust from getting in. Within this room is a small, leather tent and, looking in it, a small bedroll for Il'Tak to sleep in. The only discomforts will be the frequent flaps from the makeshift roof and the interior, if Il'tak preferred the comfort of sleeping under an open sky.

"We keep this room as a secondary place for our wounded," the desert orc explains, pointing out the size of the room. "Usually doesn't see much use, but we never know when it could come in handy. I'll come back when the chieftains call for you."

The orc gives a wave, prepares to leave, then says one last thing. "Ah, forgot. You can call me Cadrogg. May Gruumsch One-Eye bless you on your path of destruction." Unless Il'tak has more to ask, the scout leaves the orc of Aijur to his rest.

Il'Tak gives one final nod to Cadrogg, walking in to take his place in the bedroll. He rests his head on the bag of books, making an improvised pillow of sorts to prepare for the night.

Instead of sleeping, however, Il'Tak finds himself staring blankly at the roof of the tent.

Of course, there is no cause for unease. Il'Tak heard what Cadrogg said.

He is welcome among fellow orcs.

A team of scouts is searching for dangers.

No great threats roam the endless dunes.

The humans of Lorestal are gone.

...the humans of Lorestal...

...LORESTAL!!!!

All but tearing free from his bedroll, Il'Tak opens the book bag in search of a specific book. He knows that he has seen that name somewhere...

Here it is. Written in Orcish. Stories of travelling knights... a troll... and Cadrogg claims that the town is abandoned. What would have the power to wipe out an entire human city-state, though. Perhaps this book is worth reading after all.

Il'Tak stays up late into the night trying to dig into the book. While far from a great scholar, he makes a respectable dent before falling asleep midway through a page.

The guest room, indoor in the middle of the sandsea, is submerged in darkness. Thankfully, the Walkers had enough thought to place a couple candles in every room to provide some much-needed light for reading. The book's pages, credit due to the Grand Library, are well-kept flexible as Il'Tak turned each page before sleep overtook him.

Lorestal's early history took no more than a few minutes to skip through, describing little more than a group of twelve knights, coming from all corners of the continent, taking up arms together after abandoning or leaving their former homes. Swearing fealty to none but each other, the knights ruled as council to what was once a small city-state that earned a reputation for a powerful military force in the Northern Wilds.

Lorestal itself was a haven for travelers and exiled people who sought a new life, where they had nowhere else to go. Many of them enlisted in the military force, while others contributed as farmers or smiths. Curiously, Lorestal always had too many soldiers for any wayward bandits to pillage, yet too few to expand beyond its small borders.

This, as the book describes, is due to Lorestal's many skirmishes and battles against monsters and nearby settlements. Fought both for food and for honor, the knights and their soldiers commonly faced a large force of werewolves who traveled the Northern Wilds for prey. The knights took it upon themselves to eradicate them fully, for their city was too small to handle its people becoming cursed with lycanthropy. Another established force, as Il'Tak knows, are the Walkers. For over 30 years, the two people have ventured to each other's lands, taking out scouts and small forces as if it was a campaign of glory for both sides. The writing shows a rare but clear moment of bias for Lorestal, explaining how it held the upper hand even though neither side could finish the other. The knights simply was not able to search the sandsea to discover the always-moving camp. Annoyingly, the book doesn't explain what happened to Lorestal that has left it abandoned, as if it had happened after the author published their work. Perhaps the Walkers themselves may know more.

Most interesting, among Lorestal's enemies, is the tale of the troll. This creature, told in-story as "He-With-No-Name," was known as the only being who dared siege the city-state directly, on his own, no less. The event is no tale of grand revenge or hate; the knights together had ventured eastward to the hills of Argutoth, hunting for mighty beasts as part of their little game of honor. As a team, they slew an ancient chimera who's only oddity was racing at them as if retreat from something. It was hours after the knights returned, beast corpse in tow, that the troll came at the city-state. Greataxe in