Lure O' War (The Old Realms)

Ptah O' Abasi-Su

A much tall… weird & lanky creature

Lorian Calendar, 13th of Nonus 195 NC

Eplas

Oasis of Takhara (at the sources of Vapi Arn Ria River), Trade Village of Takhara

Desert Minor, the Dry Bones Basin

(Part of the Caravan trade route leading to Neesen Mountains through the Central Steppe, the Goddess Path and eventually Merchant's Triage. The final edge of the border zone between the desert sands and the steppe wilderness)

Recently retired Caravan Master Abasi-Su, a merchant from the far-off city of Ani Ta-Ne, had chosen to conclude his travels across the continent right there; at Takhara Oasis and the village bearing the same name, primarily because 'there is nothing more rewarding than seeing the caravans coming and going, under the desert's gleaming blue sky'.

A sentiment Ptah agreed with, but for slightly different reasons. Not much else anyone could do in the desert, unless he crossed the bogs to fish in the crocodile-infested river firstly, or secondly… well, a slave had to agree with his master's opinion… nine times out of ten, unless he happened to own a fine pair of tits or good enough an arse to make up for the lack of them.

Ayup.

Not a matter of preference really, just an absence of one. Why anyone would ever choose to come to Takhara to retire? The young slave always thought. Sure, the Imperials had come to Ani Ta-Ne and people had died, but why would anyone ever hurt Abasi-Su or his slaves? Everyone liked him.

The Cataphract leader Tabu-Neb and his men thought so. Tabu-Neb had arrived a week earlier, as Takhara was the last stop of his patrol before taking the east route through the Steppe to head for Merchant's Triage or turn around to head back to Wotcheki Castle. Nahab, the horse-archer scout, and Souphis, the freed slave, in the Cataphract's side of the large table had told Ptah they were hunting a rebel Horselord responsible for many atrocities by the name of Kalac and his warband. Kalac had apparently slipped away, either heading north through the inhospitable desert's expanses, or after looping around he'd opted to head for the melting pot of Triage, which in turn had left the worn-down Tabu-Neb unsure on what route to take.

"We'll head back," Tabu-Neb told the old Cofol Abasi-Su, whilst Ptah was listening and refiling their cups with cold tea at the same time. "Follow Vapi Arn Ria to Wotcheki Castle and recruit some big lads there," the hardened Horselord paused to stare in the distance, and the direction of the Kraken's Spine Peaks for a moment. "Sandstorm season is afoot," he added. "And different flavored storms are already brewing in the Khanate proper."

"Is the Khan really sick?" Abasi-Su was not a fan of old Burzin Radpur, but was cautious enough to keep his opinion to himself.

"When an old horse goes lame," Tabu-Neb retorted harshly before catching himself, a man close to Atpa but also cautious not to reveal his true sentiments too much. "The time is near."

"Radin's son rules then?" Abasi-Su queried offering the Cataphract dates from a silver bowl.

"The Khan's advisors do, mayhap Letakin's daughter influence's them a bit, but not much," Tabu-Neb replied. "At any rate, it's a matter that shall bring trouble, mark my works Master Abasi. Prince Atpa won't allow them snakes to take over without a fight."

Well, there goes caution, I guess. Still, a strange choice of words given the Prince's moniker, Ptah thought and stole a date whilst no one was looking. He kept it in his mouth without chewing it, slowing stripping the dried fruit from its juices and looked to spit the hard interior at a proper moment. Ptah had seen the Prince once, wearing his mask and speaking with the leaders in his Army of the Desert. It was back in Shao Na-Lan three years earlier during their last travel there with Abasi-Su.

"Why did the Khan pick Prince Radin's son?" Abasi-Su asked and Tabu-Neb pursed his mouth and stood up from the table. His armour and swords rattling, and his two escorts stirring nervously.

"Nout had a daughter and Sahand had gathered many wives –some of them folk would even consider mysterious, but produced no sons," the Cataphract replied harshly, and kept his stilled gaze on the side of the desert curious. It forced the old merchant to turn around on his pillows. "You told me Khem has plenty of goats. Meat, milk and hides at better price when he returns," Tabu-Neb told the frowning merchant. "Yet I see only a couple of goats hopping about him."

"Ah," Abasi-Su said with a gesture for Ptah to check out what the Cataphract was stalking about.

Ptah walked out of the shade, the sand burning his toes penetrating the open sandals, and watched the tiny herd return from the rocky path hugging the barren mountain base. Tabu-Neb had spotted them from afar which was mightily impressive.

"I don't think that's Master Khem," Ptah told them, squinting his painted with coal eyes and smelled Souphis' musky sweat, when the muscular former slave came to stand next to him to behold at the returning herder with a pair of binoculars. "He wears Ahi's garbs and turban, I think."

Ahi was Khem's slave.

"Get a camel," Abasi-Su urged Ptah with a grimace of concern. "Bring that fool here."

"Go with him," Tabu-Neb ordered the tanned Cofol Souphis, "I have a strange feeling about this."

"Ahi," Ptah said as they came close to the sweaty and very dirty, slave shepherd. Two of his goats run around him and bolted when Ptah with Souphis approached, only to return after a couple of moments and demand treats with annoying cries. "Where's master Khem? Where's the rest of his herd?"

Ahi shook his head with a gesture he needed water, but Souphis just grabbed him wearing a scowl on his face and then dragged the slave towards the large shaded loggia before Abasi-Su's villa. It was the largest building in Takhara alongside the local magister's villa/palace, a vacant position Abasi-Su hoped to soon fill himself. His son Umano-Su had taken over the caravan business, but the old merchant wanted the title as 'in this climate, you never know how a small growing village like this could turn out in ten years' time, or what folks might discover in the desert'.

Eh.

"Absurd!" old Abasi-Su decried not five minutes later, whilst Ahi attempted to take a sip from the flask Souphis had given him, an exclamation that prompted the former slave to grab the flask away from Ahi's shaking hands. "A lanky dude with an elongated cranium, bronze alike a cheap door knob, up and murdered Khem for no blasted reason?"

"A much tall… weirdly lanky creature master!"

Nahab smacked his lips, glint of gold teeth escaping his split lips for a moment and gave a side-glance at the veteran Cataphract Tabu-Neb who paid for their wages. The Horselord appeared somewhat intrigued, and not furious with the slave's crazy story.

"The pregnant goat charged him master Su," Ahi explained and dived for the ground to show his obedience. "Interrupted his digging and the creature turned violent, and very angry."

"Digging what…? This gets even more ridiculous by the minute!" Abasi-Su hissed. "Ptah get the whip with the five heads here!"

Ptah went to pick up the flaying whip with a shrug, as it was obvious Ahi had done something to Master Khem. Well, obvious it wasn't, but since Abasi-Su had said it there was no point in arguing about the matter more.

"In the caves?" Tabu-Neb queried, whilst Nahab went to put a boot on Ahi's nape and press his face in the sand. "Let him speak Nahab," he told the Horse-Archer.

"What's to say? This rotten bastard is lying," Abasi-Su griped with a grimace of disgust. "Needs to be punished harshly."

"Thereabouts…" Ahi croaked. "The goats searched for grass in the path's shades and between the rocks… he came out of nowhere!"

"What did Khem say to him?" Tabu-Neb asked. "Was he painted white? His hands, face? What about his eyes? You said, he wasn't human."

"Not a human. A demon," Ahi cried, stealing a quick glance from his prone position at Ptah returning with the nasty whip. "An evil Djinn. He started yelling and hit master Khem with the pickaxe on the head!"

"Eah, the more I hear," Abasi-Su commented shaking his gray head, but the Cataphract signaled for him to let the slave speak freely.

"In what tongue?" He asked and Nahab spat on the ground before taking the whip from Ptah's hands.

"Some kind of slurred Imperial!" Ahi cried out horrified he was going to get whipped to death.

"Lord Tabu-Neb?" Souphis asked his boss and former owner. "The funny gait, strange head and skin color. It sounds like an Aken."

"It does," Tabu-Neb agreed and poured water to his hands to dab his face and cool it off. "A bit strange having one so far away from the Khan, but some of the army has returned is the word."

"An Aken?" Abasi-Su grimaced in disbelief. "Aren't they healers?"

"The one I've seen in Rin An-Pur claimed it was," Tabu-Neb replied and wiped his moist face with a clean towel, he then tossed on the table. "But people have said other things also. Borderline unnatural."

"Natural?" Abasi-Su exclaimed, a hand over his right ear as he'd problems hearing the last couple of years.

"Maybe he has permission to explore for ruins?" Souphis probed, to save the merchant from embarrassment.

"Could be," Tabu-Neb said crooking his mouth.

"What's to explore?" Abasi-Su protested. "Nobody uses the Centipede Path, or cuts through the mountain caves! The place is cursed!"

"Goats wandered there apparently," the Cataphract replied calmly. "And goat-herders get murdered, if the slave speaks the truth. You'll head there and find out," he ordered his two men. "Locate Kibael. He's loitering in the market somewhere. Have his men help you out."

"Eh, we don't need more men," Nahab argued. "They'll slow us down. I need a guide to get us there. We'll take the slave back, I suppose."

"He might lead you into a trap," Tabu-Neb scolded his scout. "Boy, do you know the way towards the Path?" He asked Ptah, who went to argue that he didn't, but Abasi-Su cut him off.

"He does. Ptah shall get you there safely," the retired merchant replied.

Ptah clenched his teeth angrily, but said nothing.

"How far from the mountains is it? Or Knee Rise?" The Cataphract asked. The latter place was a lonely hill used by the caravans to navigate their way east.

"The Path and caves are just between the mountain range and the south road," Ptah replied with a puff of frustration, he tried to hide. "Two hours away on a fast moving Camel."

"Don't engage with him," Tabu-Neb ordered his men. "But learn what he's doing there if you can. He might spy for the Khan, but we don't want to confront him outright, or at all. Bring something, so I can inform the Prince."

"The Prince is near?" The curious merchant asked.

"Not really," the Cataphract retorted with a warning glare to Abasi-Su. "Even if he was, nothing is really nigh in the Desert."

Two hours later

The narrow rocky trail hugging the base of Kraken's Spine towards the series of sandstone hills creating the Caves and Centipede Path south of the much larger mountain range. The border of Desert Minor and Central Steppe. Two hundred kilometers from End Point Peak to the south, which marks the westernmost edge of Pale Mountains, just before the sharp coastline of Torn Earth Channel.

"Aquila-Dor is near Yin Xi-Yan," Souphis explained to Ptah, who was riding a camel next to him. "So the Prince is there also. But you can't speak about the Lurking Asp's whereabouts out in the open."

Apparently you could, out in the middle of nowhere.

"Aha," Ptah grimaced and tried to find a good spot to rest on the camel's back, since his thin robes didn't protect his backside from the rough hides of the heavy saddle.

"Uhm. I see you know when to speak and when to shut up kid. Why do people fear the Centipede Path?" Souphis asked and Nahab answered before Ptah could.

"The story goes that a desert centipede used to nest here. We are talking centuries back," the scout replied leading his horse down the trail's incline as they entered the valley between the mountains. No sign of the steppe yet, but plenty of yellow rocks and sand the desert's winds had brought from the south.

"Right. What happened to it?" Souphis asked and the scout raised his shoulders.

"I don't remember the rest. Superstition mostly, Souphis."

"I'm pretty superstitious, Nahab," the former slave retorted. "How big was this thing?"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"It stole wagons and drag them away," Ptah said with a grin and Souphis shivered uncomfortably.

"Eh. As I said," Nahab grunted, eyeing the grinning slave austerely. "Pure fucking superstition and provincial fantasies Souphis. Murdering Aken and giant desert centipedes. Stop burdening your thoughts with nonsense."

In a day of ridiculous happenstances and preposterous events this statement could have won the podium effortlessly, if not for what was to follow.

Twenty minutes later

The caves south of Centipede Path

The camel tugged at Ptah's arm bothered by the stench of rotting flesh. The slave had jumped down when Ahi, who had walked up ahead to the turn rounding up the rocky incline, paused shaking and refused to move.

"Get up there and see if you can see anything stirring," Nahab ordered him.

Ptah grimaced, then navigated the killed animals, others gutted or with their heads squashed in, and approached the boulders barring the way towards the first small cave. The hillside was peppered with them, some openings much bigger than the others.

"Have you seen any trace of Khem? His body?" Souphis asked, his voice strained by the horrific sight before them. At least six animals lay dead, their bodies scattered around. Not one carcass was whole. The relentless sun had cooked the flesh, causing the fat to liquefy and the blood to bubble, while some organs appeared to be inflating. Fat flies feasted on the gory remains and the emanating stench was unbearable, making Ptah's stomach churn as he fought the urge to vomit all over the rocky ground. "A cougar attack?" Nahab chanced. "Hyenas?"

"It was… the thing," Ahi croaked, trying to breathe and failing.

Ptah turned his head around, a foot on a loose smaller rock to look at the scared shitless slave and a loud voice boomed not three meters away from where he stood. The words coming out rough and hoarse.

"FUCKING CUNT… BACK FOR MORE…SLANT-EYED CRETIN!"

"What in the desert's spirits?" Nahab gasped from his horse, a good twenty meters away as Ptah twisted around panicked to see who it was. Ahi recoiled at the edge of the slave's peripheral vision, pivoted and started sprinting towards the two armed men and right in front of Ptah a wiry, very tall creature appeared. It wore a dirty loincloth and its crooked lanky legs hurried down the incline, bronze skin burned from the sun and covered in boils. The Aken with the sweaty and elongated, almost egg-shaped and shaved cranium leaped over small boulders, rocks and loose terrain to reach near the flinching Ptah. The slave went down hard on his back with a yelp, the Aken stooped to pick up a hefty round rock from the ground and without pause hurled it towards the legging it away Ahi.

"Fuck," Ptah gasped trying to get away from between the Aken's dirty legs and dangling cock, visible under the loincloth, whilst the rock traveled in the air and connected with Ahi's nape with a muffled thud. The escaping slave lost all strength from his legs and went down two meters from the horses –and the camel, planting his face on the hard terrain.

"Good grief!" Souphis mumbled trying to keep his horse from bolting away. "You splattered his brains out!"

"WHAT ABOUT THE EYES?" The Aken roared angrily continuing down the incline without paying any attention to the snaking away Ptah, who noticed that the creature was missing an eyeball and part of the burned skin on his back and shoulders had fallen off. The exposed flesh turning almost black underneath.

"The… what?" Souphis gasped and behind him Nahab reached for his bow, keeping his eyes on the awkwardly approaching Aken. The strange creature did carry a pickaxe on his other hand.

"Eh," the Aken grunted and stooped to grab Ahi's bloody head to turn him around. The slave's neck clearly snapping in the brutal attempt. "FUCKING EYES POPPED OUT!" The Aken bellowed irate and smashed the dead slave's skull on the ground repeatedly to vent out its frustration. Didn't stop until his long fingers held loose skin after all the bones had cracked and shattered. The slave's head didn't resemble anything human, but the grotesque injury was too much for Ptah to handle.

The younger slave bent between his legs and puked violently almost falling in the spillage as he stumbled forward.

"We serve the Khanate," Souphis told the sullen Aken, who tossed Ahi's body away and stood staring directly at the blinding sun deep in thought seemingly. "What did the slave do?"

"Ugh? What did you say?" The Aken asked turning his head to stare, with its sole snake-type eye, at the nervous Souphis.

"We serve…"

"I NEED A HORSE!" The Aken blasted him, before he could finish.

"Where do you want to go?" Nahab asked, keeping his bow lowered, but armed with an arrow. "You have a name? I'm Nahab of Shao Na-Lan. Son of Hemas—"

"FUCK HIM!"

"Excuse me?" Nahab asked with a grimace.

"It's alright, let me handle this Nahab," Souphis intervened and jumped from his horse.

"FUCK YOU POOFTER!" The Aken roared spittle flying out of its mouth. His, but the sick Ptah wasn't convinced the creature was intelligent. "SOME VISITORS! THREE PANSIES 'N A FUCKING CUNT!"

"Calm down mister," Souphis urged the furious Aken, sounding diplomatic. "You can have my horse."

"I'M CALM AS A ROCK!" The Aken roared hoarsely, his vocal chords at the verge of snapping. "THIS HORSE?"

"Aye, this one," Souphis agreed, speaking in a soothing manner.

"Ah," the Aken grunted and examined the horse for a moment.

"Fuck orders Souphis," Nahab was heard saying whilst the shaking at the display of violence Ptah tried to gather his wits. The slave wiped the vomit from his mouth and raised his head, just as Souphis replied to his colleague.

"Don't be an idiot! I got this!"

"He's insane," Nahab retorted in the Desert dialect.

"You'll get nothing for the trade," the Aken told Souphis hoarsely, like he'd swallowed enough gravel to clog his throat and it now spilled in his mouth. "And I'll also need a good eye. LET'S MAKE A DEAL SUCKER!"

The befuddled at the insane offer Souphis furrowed his brows and turned to stare at the smirking creature. Then he shook his head, reached for his scimitar with one hand and the horse's reins with the other.

"You can have the slave boy," he told the Aken and Ptah ogled his eyes panicked, until he noticed the creature had raised his free fist and then slowly extended a long middle finger out. The offensive gesture directed at the grimacing former slave as a form of an answer.

The Aken's hideous grin grew on his alien sun-scorched face.

A vulture was heard shrieking over their heads and then both the two men and the smirking Aken snapped into action. Souphis unsheathed his sword and Nahab fired an arrow from atop his mount, while the Aken swung his resting upside down pickaxe forward. The arrow nailed the Aken under the left armpit and messed up his aim. The pointy blade of the pickaxe smacked the horse's snout and forced the stricken animal to snap violently towards Souphis. The Cofol dived out of the way, as the bleeding horse faltered drunkenly and neighing in pain towards the cursing Souphis.

The Aken turned to advance on him, when another arrow thudded on his back near the spleen and almost span him around. He found his footing mid-spin and swung with the pickaxe at the attempting to stand on his feet Souphis, while Ptah watched the scene unfold with disbelieving yes.

A crunching sound was heard when the steel pick connected with Souphis, nailed him right under the chin and then disappeared inside his distorting skull. Blood spurted from the top of his head and Souphis recoiled as if struck by lighting before going completely limp. He went down on the rocky ground, sword clattering next to his still body and the Aken was heard cursing irate once more.

"DAMN IT! HIS FACE IS FUCKED! WEAK-BONE CUNTS!"

"Shite in the waterhole," Nahab swore, urging his steppe horse forward with a rush kick, while loosing another arrow that hit the Aken's bald head, lodging itself there as the creature turned. The Aken's wiry arm wrenched the pickaxe free from Souphis's battered face, and as the Horse-Archer pivoted his horse to create some space, he chucked it haphazardly in the direction of the rider.

The fleeing Nahab, having already twisted on the saddle to lob another arrow at the Aken, saw the pickaxe soaring angry through the air, ogled his painted eyes even more, and then jumped off his horse in terror. The nimble horse-archer landed on a loose rock –still holding his bow- and turned his left ankle. As for the pickaxe, it narrowly missed him -likely intended for the horse instead. It struck just beside the rear end of the ivory-decorated saddle, shattering the poor creature's spine with a horrifying crunch that echoed up and down the gentle slopes.

The sound splintering into many hisses upon entering each dark gaping cave, especially the two larger ones near the protruding edge of the hillside.

Holy mother of mercy, a sickened Ptah raised a prayer upon seeing the Aken approach the dazed Nahab with large inhuman strides. The knees bending forward as much as they did backward, giving him an alien, insect-like gait. Nahab swung with his bow trying to keep his balance on a bad leg and smacked the right side of the Aken's head so hard both the bow and stuck arrow shattered, opening a deep gush on its face.

"Ah," the Aken grunted and then his right arm snapped forward to grab Nahab by the neck with its long fingers. The Horse-Archer fought back with his fists –dropping the broken bow- and landed a couple of heavy blows on the one-eyed Aken's face.

It made very little difference as the lanky creature lifted the shorter Horselord high, his fingers strangling Nahab who tried desperately to breathe but only managed a series of quick whimpers afore he kicked the bucket seconds later.

The lonely vulture returned, its ominous shriek echoing from above and the Aken waited for Nahab's legs to stop kicking spastically in order to drop him on the rocky terrain like a sack laden with potatoes. The smell of human piss added to the stench of rotting flesh, fresh vomit and decomposing blood from before.

"Merciful goddess, you killed him!" Ptah half-gasped half-spitted, his mouth bitter from puking a second time. "You killed them all!" He cried faltering on his feet from the shock and the Aken who'd stooped over the shell-shocked, mouth-gaping and fully dead Nahab in order to check on him, turned his conned, bloody head around to stare at the young slave slightly perturbed.

"That I did," he finally admitted in his hoarse, tomb-like accent. "But both the eyes are in excellent condition! AHA-HA-HAH!"

"Fucking hells? What does this have to do—?" Ptah stopped midsentence as the Aken moved a crooked thumb and a long index finger over Nahab's face, dug this way and that, and finally gouged out the Horse-Archer's right eyeball. Most disgusting thing Ptah had seen in a day of many. Fresh bile rushed up his throat. "Oh… shite, argluh…glurg…"

The mirthful Aken got up holding both bloody eyeballs, he'd gone ahead and extracted the other one as well whilst Ptah emptied whatever he'd left in his stomach for a third time. The vile creature had a pleased smirk on his face and paused for a moment as if to perceive the carnage he'd caused.

"You're a slave yes?" The Aken asked the pale and belching Ptah, who nodded shaking. "Grab the corpse by the legs and drag it up the narrow path towards the big cave. The west side one."

"The corpse? Eh… I'm not that kind of slave," Ptah protested.

"Well, I don't want my cock sucked at this point, so you get to be a workhand," the nasty Aken deadpanned and gave Ptah a wink with his empty eye-socket. The eyelid dropped to cover the dark hole, but then wouldn't rise despite the Aken's best efforts. "DARN WEAKLINGS BODIES!" He roared, getting the last words out with a violent cough that shook him proper and made him drop one of Nahab's extracted eyeballs down. "SHIT!"

-

Twenty minutes later

West cave entrance

"That's far enough inside," the Aken ordered the sweaty and gore-covered Ptah. "Leave him and take that shovel left by the wall to cut him up."

A heavy-breathing Ptah paused to stare at the creature stunned. "What for?"

"Um," he replied and went to sit on a stone stall –cut from a piece of rock- next to a stone table –carved into the wall of the cave. The Aken had various tools on the table's surface and placed the two eyeballs carefully down, before using a finger to lift the flopped eyelid over his missing right eye. Spotting Ptah staring his way he paused with a frown. "What are you doing standing there like a poofter with a hand up his own arse? Ah, don't tell me it wasn't a rhetorical query! Fuck's sake! Get the shovel, you cocksucking idiot!"

"What for?" Ptah asked bravely.

"I'm hungry," the Aken deadpanned. "Start with the thighs. Cut straight fillets. The shovel has a sharpened blade."

"I ain't butchering a person—" Ptah argued, but yelped and jumped backwards when the Aken stood up from the stall.

"You need to get the corpse out of here soon," the Aken explained. "Else nasty things might come inside the cave and eat your ears. Aha-ha-ha-ha!" He almost doubled over, the chuckles coming out rough and not that far off from a series of growls.

"What are you going to do?" Ptah asked shuffling his feet to get the large shovel from the wall.

"Take a fucking guess," the Aken replied curtly and sat back down, before reaching for one of the bloody eyeballs. "And pray I succeed. You got two chances and then it's your turn! Now I know you're eager to get a proper fucking, but that ain't what I meant! Ha-ha. Aha-ha-hah!"

Ptah had never been so scared in his life.

It wasn't easy to butcher Nahab with the shovel. You had to cut the garbs out first and then work on the body itself. There was a lot of blood and it made Ptah sick, but he managed to sever the left leg completely, then work on the smaller piece. Extracted the bone, separated the fat from the muscle and produced two large pieces of bloody flesh, before the nasty work overwhelmed him. He run outside the cave to vomit, but Ptah's stomach had nothing solid left to expel and kept retching watery intestinal fluids mixed with saliva between his legs for a good ten minutes.

Tired and disgusted, he faltered back inside the cave with the sun well on its way to a sunset. The Aken had finished his magic and now sported both a human and a snake-like eye on its hideous face. He was also munching on one of the 'steaks' Ptah had left behind.

"Want a bite?" He asked the pale slave with a smirk. "It's a double-meaning query!"

"Are you sick? Insane? Is this how Aken are?" Ptah snapped, wiping the tears from his eyes.

"How should I know? They are probably, or they are not," the Aken replied and burped, afore cleaning his lips with a forked tongue. Then he burped again. He reached to pick up a black piece of shard, it looked like a piece of mandible.

"What is this?" Ptah asked and examined the giant cave for a moment. It extended for hundreds of meters beyond the entrance, standing at a height of over six meters and a width of twenty.

"A Centipede's jaw," the Aken replied and used the pickaxe to carve the inside of the mandible hollowing it out. "You can make a good grip for a sword with it."

"That's a big jaw."

"Nah. It was a youngling," the Aken replied. "The idea was to eat them after they hatched, one by one. Slowly replenish myself whilst in relative safety and cover. Out of sight."

"You eat…" Ptah grimaced and looked about them. Suddenly the cave appearing much more ominous than before. "Are there more?"

"Other folk came," the Aken replied reminiscing, a little surprise in his tone, as if he'd just remembered murky details, hidden from him under a veil for far too long. "Killed the creatures. Found the body. Hunters, with a good nose for the smell of draconite."

"What's draconite?"

"Wyvern bones," the Aken grunted angrily and stood up, unfurling from the ground until it towered over the young slave.

"There was a wyvern nesting in here?" Ptah asked with a fearful voice and the foul Aken set his different shaped and colored eyes on him soberly. "When was that?"

"A long time ago," he replied.

"What happened to its body?" Ptah asked very spooked and already worn out from the events that had preceded the day. The young slave also wanted to keep the Aken talking for fear he'd demand more nastiness from him. Now Ptah could satisfy a man's or woman's most needs, but it didn't mean he enjoyed it, or even worse that he wanted to copulate with the evil alien.

"Most of it is gone," the Aken said and pointed at the shelves carved out of the sandstone walls of the cave. A series of polished black tiles were neatly laid there, made out of some kind of glassy material. Amidst them peculiarly, a badly scratched Cataphract leader's silver mask. The mask smiled back at him seemingly and Ptah averted his painted eyes.

The whole entrance of the cave had been flattened into the rock. Steps built and even columns carved into an impressive gateway invisible from afar. Once nearer, the large cave's entrance looked like a giant tomb built inside the mountain.

"Who did all this work? Are these old ruins?" Ptah asked hoarsely, remembering his discussion with Abasi-Su.

"Tools make the buildings, but you can make anything with enough material around, if you just put your mind to it. Forge a tool, or shape rocks into columns," the Aken explained with a grimace. "Turn a cave into something akin to a tomb, when it's really a trap."

"A trap for whom?"

"The wyvern left, separate from the body," the Aken replied his mind elsewhere. "Still its essence lingered in this realm and dreamed of things. For its spirit was too great to fully die or depart for good. Too powerful to cross over. Live long enough and you'll challenge the gods, or become one yourself."

"What became of the part that survived?" a frightened Ptah inquired, as shadows deepened within the cave, engulfing the space as sunlight faded away. The Aken extended a hand towards his face, its elongated fingers curling into a claw just inches away. The grotesque visage of the creature contorted, creaking bones shifting unnaturally beneath the surface, with skin sagging in places as if struggling to fit a different skull trying to emerge. After a brief pause, whatever was stirring within the Aken ceased, and it let its arm fall limply to its sides.

"He dreamed of vengeance and vowed not to depart, afore taking everyone responsible with him," the Aken finally said in its tomb-like voice. "In time, even an impatient soul learns of patience. Uses his foresight to leap ahead, glimpse into the future and figure where everyone else will end up. It shall take time and many tries. Mistakes, but in the end all shall be where they should, because the true nature of all creatures leads their stride towards their true future. Those who build great things must know how to level everything down and start over anew. Some wyverns and other creatures become gods when they die or manifest divinity well before it –if they are lucky in their evil ways, whilst others just want to see the realm burn in righteous indignation, or just for fun."

"What kind of wyvern was he?" The spooked Ptah queried with a shaking voice and the sullen Aken retorted gruffly, as if he wished to talk no more.

"Gimoss, is all of the above," the Aken had told him that day inside the cave.