Ball of Nothing

Zero groaned. They have been travelling for a week now without any interesting happening. After looting Gnaway and trying to track the whereabouts of the hideouts, Truen and Zero found only one note saying that gnomes have travelled further to the West to settle down after Gnaway had fallen.

While they had a lead now, it wasn't much good for them. Thinking back about how the entire city started to collapse after Zero retrieved the Phoenix's Pearl, Zero couldn't help but feel slightly remorseful. That city might have been a ruin but there was simply too much unfound potential in it. Everything was now dust and Truen informed him that the djinn was no more. He didn't specifically say it but Zero somehow knew that Raju had returned back to the cycle of life. No wonder he didn't want to see Raj even if they were related. Raju must have known that his time was almost up.

Perhaps this was what fate meant. If Zero didn't stumble of Gnaway, Raju and King Gregory's history might be washed away in the sands of time. The Red Phoenix's Pearl was also something that resonated with him strongly. Zero couldn't help but feel excited when his appraisal skill told him that the object was full of Nel's energy traces. He was one step closer to finding one of his divine entities. According to Shittomi, he had to visit Whiskeria because that was where Nel's last activities were found. So far, he had no way of getting to the planet because he had no way of setting a teleportation coordinate in the wormholes he opened in the void. First, he had to complete the Finding Nel quest to activate the navigation system function locked by the Tri-coloured petal artefact. It was a complicated and tedious process but Zero was finally one step closer.

Yet, Derby Desert was beginning to bore him. He had killed six desert worms and didn't really want to deal with any more nuisances. Why couldn't they find some sort of village? Desert Lily told them that there were settlements in the desert from time to time. Why have they not encountered a single one their entire journey? It was close to a month since they started on this mission but they only conquered one dungeon, came across Gnaway and nothing more.

As if someone heard Zero's complaints, something started to show on his minimap and Mii pointed it out excitedly.

"Truen! There is life in the north-east direction about fifty miles from here!"

At that announcement, everyone snapped back to attention. Bob and Truen hated to admit it but the journey had been rather boring. Jermine was also looking forward to good news so Zero dished out roles for everyone.

"Bob, take Jermine close enough and have her dig underground to see what's going on in the area with life sources. Truen, mark it out for me on the minimap what you can see with the arrows. I can only see a small corner of the place, I need to know how big the area is. Both of you will travel on Bob's back. I will take care of the sand walkers and meet you halfway. We might need to set up camp before reaching the village because of the distance. The sun is almost setting so don't stay for too long, be back by dinner."

Glad that he could finally stretch his wings, Bob quickly transformed into his dragon body. Jermine was no longer afraid of Bob's true form and quickly climbed on top of his back with Truen's help. Once Jermine was safely saddled up, the archer sat behind her and held onto the strapped-on saddle. This was something new for Bob as well. Zero made this on their travels during the boring and uneventful week. It looked like a normal backpack in his human form but transformed into a portable saddle when he became a dragon.

The wind at a higher altitude felt good on their faces but the rays from the sun started to sting so Truen pulled up his hood and helped Jermine with hers. They watched as Bob quickly covered the distance and Truen fired some arrows to cover the hundred-mile radius.

From the ground, Zero watched his map update itself. Bob travelled very quickly and it was a pity they couldn't be seen riding a dragon or people would start trying to hunt Bob. The life sources turned out to be a very small village and Truen said that they looked like a fairly normal village from above.

"Just to be sure, we are going to use invisibility magic to land nearby so that Jermine could mark the structure out. Bob will wait for us a distance away and I will infiltrate it to scout the villagers' lifestyle."

Zero approved of Truen's initiative with the party call function and smiled, urging the three sand walkers to run quicker. They were going to take some time so Zero wanted to find a good spot to set up camp. To celebrate a small find in the vast desert, he was going to make a delicious meal. They have enough desert worms so he was going to try his hand at sliced worm soup for Jermine.

Jermine started digging at once and Truen quickly followed after her. He told Bob to wait in the tunnel instead of trying to follow after them because the dragon was still unable to restrain his mana.

Bob sulked but agreed. Jermine got tunnelling and Truen soon found himself beneath the village.

"What do we do now?" Jermine asked. They were in the middle of the village but Truen could do any reconnaissance without going to the surface. Jermine also found it odd that there were many roots above her and dared not dig into their territory.

Truen smiled. It was time for him to use another special skill.

"Can you describe to me what these villagers look like? I'm going to make a clone and send it out to spy on them."

Jermine was surprised by Truen's resourcefulness but described in as much detail as she could, occasionally helping Truen to sculpt the elemental golem puppet.

Once they had their clone, Truen animated it and controlled it with his Parallel Mind. Jermine dug a tunnel to the outside of the village a little further so that she wouldn't disturb the plant roots and the puppet hopped out of the hole like a mischievous child. Truen heard about these villagers, they were cacti-folk and a type of desert dryad race.

As Truen's clone ran around in the village behaving as any normal child would, the elf scouted the structure. So far, the village looked like it was a farming village without even a trading station. The villagers bartered what they needed with each other and there were many fields for planting vegetables. He couldn't understand how carrots were able to thrive in the desert until he saw the cacti-folk in action.

The cacti-folk squeezed an arm and water came out of it, watering the plants. Another cacti-folk lay down in a huge basin to be wrung dry by other cacti-folks as if that was a normal thing. The cacti-folk who had their water content squeezed dry were left to sleep and recuperate. It was an oddly disturbing scene but thankfully, children were not required to contribute to anything.

The information-gathering session ended shortly and Truen let the elemental golem deconstruct back to sand before he ended the spell and recalled his Parallel Mind.

"We're done, let's go back to Zero."

Jermine agreed and Bob couldn't help but ask about what they saw. Truen decided to tell them what he saw and keep Zero in the party call so he didn't have to repeat himself later. He was having doubts about visiting the village after seeing how cacti-folks used themselves as water sources. It was a highly disturbing scene, one that he couldn't get out of his head even after it was time to sleep.