a small force tonight than risk a small army gathering at the door."

Il'Tak looks to the other two orcs to see if there is anything he missed.

Cadrogg and Elybin give differing reactions to Il'Tak, followed by a silence dent by the flowing sand coming through the shrine's rectangular openings up high. Cadrogg releases an easy sigh, relieved through his heavy mouth as his eyes, covered by his goggles, undoubtedly show some form of relief. "And I'll listen to the Aijur," he speaks up, eyes towards Elybin and gathering a little strength in his voice. "We know the desert best, but we didn't walk halfway across the Wilds like he has."

Like an invisible needle stinging her neck, Elybin frowns and turns her eyes aimlessly to her right. Her tusks give off the dimmest light in the shrine's darkness. "...Fine, point taken." Her sharp, slightly disappointed tone sounds worn as if she has spoken those exact lines many times before. "I won't delude myself thinking I should take on a few Aijur orcs alone. She takes several steps toward the exit. "I'll go first. I've got a few ways to lose 'em in the sands if the storm dies down. May Gruumsch One-Eye bless you on your path of destruction."

She reveals her right hand from her cloak and gives a wave. Notably, on her forearm is a mounted sling held together by thin wood. The leathery material of the sling is held tight and fastened to the knuckles of her wrapped hand. Merely curling her hands into a fist would stretch the sling enough that it'd give into pressure and fire.

Il'Tak and Cadrogg watch her load a small round stone into the arm sling before running off, soft leather steps thumping on the stone and sand, as she exits the shrine and disappears through the sandstorm beyond.

"Let's not spend any more time," Cadrogg insists, pulling out a small vial and dripping several drops down on a similar-looking stone. The vial's liquid resembles the one in the potion Il'Tak took prior. "If they see us, I'll slow them down with this. But it won't last long. Let's get to our mounts and get outta here."

There's a few ways to get out without a direct fight. Elybin took a quick, if unsubtle approach. Il'Tak and Cadrogg will have to get out their own way. With the sandstorm outside, pillars surrounding the shrine, and large statues and darkness inside, there's plenty of ways to get out of here without a fight.

Leaping onto his mount... it turns out that calvum do not like that. Il'Tak's mount nearly bucks him off as Cadrogg mounts himself, forcing the orc to grab on for dear life. The calvum settles soon enough, however, and Il'Tak is off. Flattening himself against the calvum's black, Il'Tak's mount charges into the sandstorm, curling and weaving between the pillars to throw pursuers off his trail before heading down to the south, away from the approaching Aijur incursion.

Il'Tak can feel the sandstorm pick up as he marches on his calvum. The flow of sand onto his furs and his skin is almost a stingy irritation with the threat of his own kind coming down on him. Taking one look back, he can see two of his kind mostly obscured in the blowing dust and sand. At most, he can make out their physique: bulky, trained, and at least bigger than any human. One of the three, however, is a little taller and lankier than the others; a battleaxe, nearly six feet in length with a massive, curved, double-edged blade, lies on the back. The figure points out in the direction of Il'Tak and the orcs next to the tall one spread out right. Down south, Il'Tak can see two other figures keeping watch. Cadrogg did say they would be here at any moment; it's clear that they Set Up A Perimeter to spot the escapees from any direction.

Thankfully, none of them have the experience to navigate the land as well as Il'Tak. He goes unnoticed while slipping out through the pillars on the calvum, though he still is within the perimeter.

Cadrogg, lacking in the same survival experience, attempts to sneak out from the other side of the Divine Shrine, only to hear a coarse, forcibly-emotionless cry from his left. "There!" And with a small gasp, Cadrogg turns his body around and lifts up his sling. He spins it several times with a focused gaze before throwing the coated stone at the Aijur orc and knocking it on the forehead just below the brown fur-lined fox helmet. The forest-raised opponent starts drawing an iron long sword, a typical Aijur weapon, before his arm suddenly freezes in place and the blade drops onto the sand. The paralyzed orc gives Cadrogg a small chance to flee on his calvum while the nearby tall orc begins moving towards him.

Il'Tak feels his heart freeze in his chest as he counts the orcs around him.

If this many orcs were sent to look at an ancient shrine... No, no time to think on this.

Approaching the perimeter, Il'Tak pats his calvum on the back, "All right, sandwalker. Let's make things a bit confusing."

Charging past one of the orcs guarding the edge, Il'Tak continues until he can no longer see the guard over his shoulder...

...At which time he loops back around.

Entering the perimeter from a different angle, Il'Tak charges toward the temple... before curving around a pillar and exiting in a different direction.

Il'Tak repeats this unsteady maneuver one final time, doing his best to count the orcs at hand and make sure that he's been seen leaving the temple in no fewer than three different directions.

After his final departure, Il'tak curves his Calvum's path northward. If Cadrogg was still heading for the city, their paths would hopefully meet up soon.

At first, there is a moment of doubt. Aijur orcs may not be astounding tacticians, but they can be brutal; they can be cunning; sometimes they can be brutally cunning. Planning feints and confusing steps is a commonly-considered tactic back in the forest alongside the use of goblin traps and ambush points. But among orcs, no one is better at it than Il'Tak. It's to his advantage that the blowing winds of the sandsea, with its shifting sandy ground and endless blur of dust, is a very different environment from the mud-caked, wood-and-stone ground and leafy skies of Aijur.

With the blowing sand, it was hard to gauge the exact number of orcs. He had counted four, at least, at least four. And while hard to hear, Il'Tak can make out shouts from his kind. "There!" one shouts, loud and yet... expressionless. "He's that way!" calls another, equally uninterested and dragging in his crackling voice. They were hunting him; and yet, they acted without the will expected of an orc. It's equally chilling and tragic, and to any humans, pathetic.

But most importantly, as Il'Tak leaves northward, is that they do not see him leave. It should take them awhile to catch his tracks as the blowing sand hide the pincer tracks of his calvum.

The sand seems endless as Il'Tak travels on his mount; mithril blade thankfully clean of orc blood. There's barely a change in the dull light of the sky; time seems so endless. Then, he hears another set of pincers gently skewer down on the shifting sands. Behind him, Cadrogg is in the distance, riding on his calvum with greater skill and speed than Il'Tak has been able to manage. In a minute, the Walker caught up, riding aside the Aijur orc. And just as quickly, Cadrogg begins leading Il'Tak northward and out of danger.

But in the Walker's face, despite the goggles blocking the eyes, Il'Tak can make out a glimpse of horror. "You were right..." Cadrogg's voice sounding ghostly as he speaks through the blowing dust. "I got a look at one of them. I-I barely saw anything resembling emotion. Even the undead don't look so lifeless." A curious mention of the undead, something Il'Tak has thankfully not met yet.

Cadrogg turns his upper body around to look at Il'Tak; the loose tunic flutters with the sandstorm going around them. "We'll hit Lorestal in a day's time," he states, attempting to look ahead, metaphorically. "We'll have lost them by then, if all goes well. We'll do what we need to do there. Then... then..." There's a moment of doubt in Cadrogg's voice. His head directly looking at Il'Tak and with a heavy tone, asks:

"Do you think, there, you'll find what can save your kind?"

Il'Tak wipes the stubborn mixture of sweat and sand from his brow, sparing a smile at the sight of Cadrogg.

The news that they are nearing the goal brings Il'Tak a deep sense of relief... and foreboding.

What was Il'Tak really hoping to find in Lorestal, save for the ruins of a hero's tomb?

"No," says Il'Tak, half-surprised by his own honesty, "I do not think that anything in Lorestal can save the Aijur. I do not know if anything in the world truly can."

Il'Tak pauses, considering his words as his calvum crests the next dune.

"The only things that might help now are whispered in fables and shouted sagas. None can say what shrines yet stand, what heroes yet live, or what relics have been forever lost."

"Even so... If I failed to chase each one to the ends of the earth... what right have I to call myself the last son of Aijur?"

Cadrogg, of all reactions, gives a low-and-weary chuckle to Il'Tak. He readjusts his goggles one more time. "You're awfully cryptic for an orc," he comments, noting the way Il'Tak described the 'help' he's looking for. "Kind of... sounds familiar. I'm trying to follow a lead on some relic myth. If Lorestal doesn't have anything, where else could I look?" His thick mouth bends slowly into a frown, trying to keep his head high up against the blowing sand and dust. "One step at a time; one foot in front of the other... Elybin used to tell me that."

He covers his mouth with his heavy right arm as he yawns; exhaustion of some kind begins to have an effect. "We'll see what's left of the Twelve's city-state." He can afterward be heard repeating those words from Elybin. "One step at a time; one foot in front of the other..."

---

The trip out of the sandsea feels longer than it is. Cadrogg leads Il'Tak around several dunes, around numerous quicksand spots, and avoiding the open, crest-less sands where monsters look for the foolhardy and the blind. Eventually, the two find the sand and dusty hills withering, the blowing storm subsiding, and the two find the exit out to a barren field with the sun ready to begin disappearing over a distant hill.

The Walker looks at it in awe. He's likely never seen an actual sunset before, given the sandsea obscures the sun. For this brief moment, it seems like it's Il'Tak who is the experienced traveler, and Cadrogg the unfamiliar.

The following night comes and goes without incident; the Aijur orcs either way behind, or lost their way in the sandsea. The trek northward is filled with relatively less peril than Cadrogg had prepared for. The two climb through numerous mountains, walking across the sides on beaten paths and in long-abandoned tunnels.

When the two come out from the mountain range, hundreds of feet above ground level with a spiraling path downward, they see it.

The huge, grey stone walls of Lorestal surround the circular town, two rivers pincer the fortification beyond it. Small buildings, albeit difficult to see from here, surround a square-shaped fortress of steel with paved roads of some kind leading every way around the place. Light clouds overcast the afternoon sky, making for a relatively clear day for the frontier.

"There it is," Cadrogg comments, looking in the distance while trying to restrain his nervousness. His grey finger points out to a rectangular shape, without a ceiling, barely a hundred feet northeast from the city. Heavier stone walls, twice as tall surround it as if it were a prison. "The excavation site should be there." He looks to the Aijur orc. "I don't know how deep it goes. You said you have something to see; we should do that first."

According to the book, the deep grave that became Xir'Nag's was made just east of the city and, curiosly, not in the ruins that became a presumed mass grave site. Cadrogg is ready to follow Il'Tak.

The desert extends ever onward, it seems.

"One step at a time," Cadrogg says... Surely, that is all that the wasteland promises. No promise of food, water, or shelter can be found in these lands. Only the vow that there will be new sands to traverse.

Still, Il'Tak is an orc of the Wilderness. Freed from thoughts of immediate battle - or perhaps numbing himself to such thoughts - Il'Tak takes the time to learn and observe, watching for the vague signs of life that flow just beneath the sands.

It fascinates him, this unstable terrain. The earth slides free and is thrown asunder with each step of his Calvum, blown by the winds ahead of him so it may be walked once more.

Still, the desert continues ever forward, offering but one more step to be taken.

Then, in defiance of it's grand nature, the desert simply ends. The sandsea yields to mounds of loose dirt upon arid soil, the last refuge of twisted and rugged weeds, before reluctantly giving way to solid earth and proper stones and mountains.

Each step that the calvum take upon solid ground sends a solid impact through Il'Tak's body. At long last, Il'Tak feels that he is back in his element.

Il'Tak leads a hunt that night, if one could apply the term to the meek fauna who thrived in this environ. While Il'Tak believes that he sees the spoor of some goat-like creature, all that he catches are a few lizards and scorpions.

Watching the descent of the sun in the sky, Il'Tak can't help but smile.

"Try not to stare at it too long," Il'Tak advises with a smile, "It'll be here for us tomorrow."

The journey through the mountains is a fairly pleasant affair. While his Calvum needs cajoling to pass through a few of the tunnels, no great feats of mountaineering are called for.

To pass the time, Il'Tak tells the walker stories of a few past hunts, sharing some of the sights he has seen and telling Cadrogg about the few familiar species Il'Tak sees. At the same time, he asks questions as well.

Where these tunnels came from, who knew of them, and if they could be used to hide if the pair were attacked. What was Cadrogg hoping to find and how long had they been searching for it, if it was even the Walkers who started the dig.

All thoughts of conversation grind to a halt when Lorestal comes into view, however. Il'Tak's mind returns to Alugahn, the city where he had started his just a couple