>>6135870You shake your head vigorously. There was no way this was real. It was impossible. This land was doing all that it could to drive you mad, but you would not give in so easily. You were here to conquer Morfis, not the other way around. This was merely another trial for you in a long list that you must overcome. Turning your back on the small glimmer of paradise, you march your camel forward, riding next to the others in your party.
>“None of you saw that, right?” You ask, slight hesitation evident in your voice.“Saw what?” May asks, her beady little eyes staring out at you from within the makeshift canopy she hid herself in.
>“The trees over there. And the water.”Cassius and May turn their heads to where you point. Their eyes are squinted as they scan the horizon. However, your heart sinks when they turn back to you with strange expressions on their face.
“Lord Tristain…” Cassius begins tepidly. “Are you perhaps experiencing desert madness?”
>“I am not!”“That’s a relief.” May sighs. “Please let us know if you are, boss. It would be bad for the one person that could rip our heads off to go insane.”
“While we are on the subject of going mad…” Adeline says, concern growing evident in her tone. She’s standing in the stirrups of her camel, atop a large dune that gives her a viewpoint of the land below. “Could anyone else please let me know if they also see that?”
You and the others join Adeline at the top, shocked by what you find. A large sandstorm is raging in the distance. The obscenely massive tempest reaches all the way up towards the sky, larger than anything you’d ever seen before. Even from where you stand, you can feel the gusts reaching you across the vast stretch of desert between you and it. The shifting sands move in a circular position, going round and round and obscuring your vision of the inside of the storm.
>“Should that concern us?” You call out to Alvin, who was slightly ahead of you along with the rest of his men. Notably, they’d all stopped, and were staring at the violent tempest.“Not at all!” Alvin calls back. “Welcome to Ithaca!”
>“That doesn’t look like a research camp to me.” You say, joining the Adjunct. “What is the meaning of this?”“The camp lies within the storm.” Alvin explains. “Remember when I said that Ithaca was impregnable? This is what I meant. The sandstorm you see before you is not natural. It was created by an artifact that lies within the research station. No one can get in or out of Ithaca without using this artifact. In this, it provides the perfect cover and security for the various experiments that the mages here carry out.”
