ic Incursion: God Squad

[Raveled]

Miras moved in a wide circle around the battlefield, eying the bodies with intense scrutiny. She did her best to stay out of Set's line of sight, but she did find herself kneeling next to one of the corpses, peeling necrotic flesh back from shining metal coils. It was a confounding sight; a necromancer would use magic to animate the dead, not technology like this, and someone who could build robots shouldn't be ransacking crypts for bodies to control. It didn't sound like any supernatural threat she had ever heard of.

She moved to the crypts themselves, examining the hieroglyphs and other carvings. The mage was careful not to touch any of the tombs, but she did pull out her translation of the Book of Going Forth By Day. She couldn't read the hieroglyphs, but she could still cross-reference with the translations in the book.

[KnightDisciple]

Sun Walker moved at a more sedate pace over to the others, his arms crossed in a thoughtful posture, his expression rather unreadable (not helped by his not-quite-human facial features), and the last foot or so of his tail twitching in the air behind him. He eyed the rather tense atmosphere for a few moments before speaking. 

 

"Meatheral is correct. At this time hostility within our group is undesirable. We can have a calm discussion later to clear misunderstandings and other matters. I sympathize with the indignities occurring today, but what we should seek now is a way to prevent further such injustice, and more importantly, stop whatever, whoever is doing this before it goes further. Though I must confess confusion and curiosity about such activity out here. It does not seem a...tactical or strategic?...site, necessarily."

Edited January 19, 2015 by KnightDisciple

[Raveled]

Miras closed her book and put it away in her bag. She could sit here staring at old crypts all day, but she didn't have any real idea of what any of it meant. Instead, she pulled out a bottle of water and took a long swallow. She'd be useless if she couldn't think straight because of dehydration, after all.

"This is just a guess," she said to Sun Walker, "but this whole thing feels like magic. People don't investigate ancient Egyptian tombs hoping to find ancient Egyptian robots, after all. Places of power tend to be either out of the way or underneath major cities." She shrugged. "We should be happy this isn't in the middle of Cairo or Istanbul."

[Ecalsneerg]

"Really?" asked Arrowhawk, raising an eyebrow. "Nothing says it has to be magic. I mean, a couple of gods intervened, and called in you hoodoo types." He shrugged. "The involvement of all of you, on top of how you usually think, means you're possibly just leaping to the magic card. We can see metal. We can see circuits. I can't see magic, admittedly, but you lot can, if you don't bias yourselves."

 

He pointedly looked at Set. He'd seen a few faces like that, some of them his. Idiot was blaming himself was something which wasn't his fault. "Lot of arseholes in this universe. Our involvement doesn't mean it's got a damn thing to do with our actions."

[Gizmo]

"Good tidings, mortals! Tis no reason to quarrel, for thy be buffoons one and all!" a cruel, mocking voice rang out, interrupting the heroes' suppositions. Its owner stood atop one of the taller, half-buried ruins, the steady sun glinting off of the unnaturally sharp teeth in his wide smirk. Perhaps seventeen or eighteen, the youth's dark complexion and hair suggested he was a local but the rich purple chiton and ornate platinum and emerald armor he wore, engraved with patterns of feathers and scales, all bore a distinctly Greco-Roman style. If his garb and teeth weren't obvious enough, distinctly pointed ears and jet black eyes certainly made it clear that they were dealing with something not quite human. Miras didn't get quite the sense of an unshielded blast furnace from the young man that she got from Set and Sekhmet but the sensation was certainly similar, more like a wax candle struggling to contain the heat of a butane torch.

The shorter Heliopolian rounded on the source of the voice with a start, wary and scowling. Unconcealed hate twisted his graceful features as he named the abrupt arrival aloud: "Typhon." Sekhmet looked startled for a moment, head jerking between Set and the young man on the ruins several times before she fell into a ready crouch with a growl from the back of her throat.

An oddly echoing laugh rang out. "Set," Typhon greeted in return, his tone pleased and condescending. "In truth I feared thy would mistake me. Tis been so long! Be truthful, the shambling dead? Too much, too obvious for the opening games? I know what value you place upon theatrics!"

[Raveled]

Miras looked at the young man posing on the tomb, at the chitin and platinum armor, at the all-black eyes and the pointed ears. This person certainly wasn't a human, but they were doing a poor job imitating a local. They even had power, she could feel that much, but nothing like Set and Sekhmet; it felt that there was too much power in them and at any moment it was going to burst free and consume him. And then Set spoke a name, and she felt her skin prick. Asli had read Greek myths, anyone who willingly associated with some a name like Typhon wasn't someone she wanted to be around.

Still, they were here and she wasn't about to retreat before just a name, so she cleared her throat and stepped back from the tomb so she didn't have to crane her neck so far back to see him. "You're the one responsible for the cyborg zombies, then? The ones that just attacked us?" She paused, and then added, "A conga line of them dancing would have been dramatic, too. Death tends to ruin the joke, since there's usually no one left afterwards to laugh at it."

[Vahnyu]

"Have to agree with mister Arrowhawk there. Mechanizing mummies sounds more like Doctor Frankestein's field of work than Doctor Orpheus'." Meatheral added, himself barely more versed in the arcane ways than the veteran hero. "Though choosing mummies instead of regular corpses..." Before he had time to complete that train of thought, a sudden chill ran up his now metaphorical spine, and as he turned to witness the owner of the mocking voice, Meatheral felt a low rumbling where his stomach would have been. "... or, nevermind."

 

The boy reeked of murderous intent, and it was plain to see that while he appeared relaxed and aloof, the boy was a mass of raging and barely restrained emotions waiting to be unleashed at the drop of the hat. The Tetramegeton convulsed and spun inside Jerry, and an ominous feeling begun to overtake him, as his flames wildly shifted and burned in response, giving one the impression of an animal trying to appear bigger than it is in order to scare off a dangerous predator.

 

However, whatever sense of bravery was left in Meatheral, was vanished as soon as Set spoke the boy's name. "No... no way..." His blackened eyeholes widening, Meatheral slowly felt his flames flickering out little by little at the realization. "The son of Gaia and Tartarus, concieved so that he would become the scourge of the gods... the father of monsters... don't tell me... is that guy the real deal? We're expected to go up against that thing?!" Involuntarily floating a few paces backwards, Meatheral was overcome with despairing emotions. "... Impossible... There's no wa we can do that!!"

[KnightDisciple]

Sun Walker eyed the newcomer. He had not the extensive knowledge of myths and magic that many here had (a lack he really should work to remedy), and sadly he was not yet quite as experienced in reading people as many here were.

 

But even his comparatively naïve eyes could behold the wickedness in human form that was before them. He saw the reactions of the others at this being's name. And he saw the despair of Meatheral at the mere presence of this person. Quietly, his tail slowly unwinding from his waist and making a few agitated lashes behind his back, he stepped until he was next to the fiery hero. He reached one hand out as if to put it on the other hero's shoulder, but drew it back. Probably because of the fire.

 

His voice came out with surprising strength, and his eyes remained locked on this "Typhon".

 

"If there is one lesson I have learned from what studies I have made of my honored ancestor, it is that "impossible" is a very relative word. Typhon is but one against our many. All of us are strong. Perhaps he is the father of monsters."

 

Sun Walker paused, and when he next spoke, it was as if the velvet had been drawn back from the steel.

 

"But we are those who strike down the monsters. So too shall we overcome this foe."

[Ecalsneerg]

Arrowhawk openly laughed at this 'god'. "Buffoons? Listen, kid, drop the word games." He glanced contemptuously at the flaming, smoking kid. "Monkey Man's right. Partially. We smite down monsters. Kick 'em up the arse and make them cry. What he's wrong about is, well... the monster part."

 

He turned back on Typhon, not tensed, bow hung limply. He wasn't ready to fight, because he didn't feel much need to right now. "Take away the finger quotes 'god' in you, and well... you're just a punk. You wanna fight, then fight. I don't think you give a crap with talking, except to get your jollies. You're a goddamn child hopped up on Max and Zoom." The older superhero sneered. "I don't give a damn what tricks you've got on the outside, on the inside you're just a psycho wannabe."

[Gizmo]

Typhon's lips twitched uncontrollably as he struggled to let the mortals each say their piece but by the time Arrowhawk had begun listing illicit substances the father of all monsters was was laughing hard enough that he was having trouble remaining upright. "Such speeches!" He raised one hand with the thumb under the other four fingers to form a puppet; as he opened it wide the flesh rippled and reformed into a scaly, saurian head with a glittering onyx hue. "Meh meh myeh meh," he began in a surprisingly passable imitation of Miras' voice before dropping into a gravelly exaggeration of Arrowhawk, "Grr, argh. Haha! I knew I would regret not visiting the mortal plane before my new favourite star beast wiped you little insects from existence! And such toys its laid out to borrow!" He gestured with his other hand at the fallen cyborg mummies, which began to twitch unnaturally as his gaze fell over them. "Somewhat lacking in imagination, of course. For example!"

The gleaming metal, dessicated flesh and darkened bones flew off of the ground in disturbingly liquid streams, joined by more of the same flowing from inside and around the ruins and converging in three great masses of blasphemous material. Horribly they solidified into more recognizable shapes, each the size of a house: a massive eagle with gizzards dropping from its cruel beak, a gigantic humanoid figure with a skeletal head and a snake's tail below the waist and a monstrous combination of lion, snake and goat that raised its head in a roar that shook the ground. "Ah! Much better, aye?"

[Ecalsneerg]

Arrowhawk leveled his bow in a quick snapping gesture, a couple of arrows already in hand, one notched and sent flying at Typhon's face. They could keep knocking down the monkeyss, he figured, but with the organ grinder still here, he could just make more of them. 

 

"I'll be the one saying aye here, kid." He systemically targeted his volley of arrows at approximations of where he thought weak points would be, despite Typhon's obvious ability at shapeshifting. The face, the solar plexus, knee and elbow joints, groin, a couple of arrows each blurring through his hands, through his bow and towards the god in a practised, tried and tested rhythm.

[Gizmo]

Arrowhawk's volley flew quick and true, too fast for the massive chimaera formed of rotted bones and twisted metal to swat them out of the air, and each arrow found its target... before clattering harmlessly to the roof of the ruined necropolis Typhon was standing upon. Making a show of checking to see if the nails on one hand had been chipped, Typhon's smirk widened into a grin full of shark's teeth. "Oh, a fine showing! I knew Philoctetes, grandpatḗr, and thy be no Philoctetes. No weapon nor magics devised by mortal mind may harm the Father of all Monsters!" In response the trio of gigantic terrors growled in unison and began advancing on the heroes, the snake tailed abomination focusing on the offending archer with a low, rumbling hiss.

[Vahnyu]

The situation got progressively worse by the second, as Meatheral witnessed completely stunned the rising monsters. The Carpathian Eagle... Chimaera... Lamia... or at the very least, their mechanical representations thereof. Meatheral wanted to believe Sun Walker and Arrowhawk, he wanted to subscribe to their courage. But the fact remained. I know I wanted to play the hero, but... this is so out of my league it hurts. Crooks and the occasional costumed villain is one thing but monsters? Gods? The next moments lasted an eternity. As Arrowhawk let loose a barrage of arrows at the immortal god, despite them breaking at the merest of touches to the immortal's skin, Meatheral felt the flame inside him violently spreading throughout his body, as if to provide him strenght and incite him to action. Clenching his fiery fists as hard as he could, he shouted: "NO! I'M NOT GONNA COWER AND RUN AWAY LIKE A WHIPPED LITTLE CHILD!"

 

Blasting off above the Eagle, fury burning like a wildfire that spreads uncontrollably through the forest, Meatheral decided to go for maximum impact, as he devised a plan. "I'll sooner burry you than let you take flight, ancient monster. TERRA DEORSUR ME TREMIT!" flying downwards, towards the Eagle, Meatheral started transforming, the flames surrounding his body steadily getting covered by a rocky shell. "I won't let you take flight!" His stature nonupled in size, and as he gained considerable mass, the now again transformed Meatheral landed on top of the mechanical abomination with the force of 200 tons! "You won't be feasting on anyone's innards, you overgrown chicken." The hit was tremendous, causing the beast's body to quake with tremors. As he landed on its backside, Meatheral brought down his fists like twin megaton hammers, applying the full force of his body behind the swings. In fact, it was such a tremendous hit, that even he felt it, the force reverbrating back to him and ejecting him backwards. "GRAAAHGHH!!" Meatheral screamed, more surprised by the feedback of the backlash than actually hurt, but it was enough to disorient him.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Vahnyu

[KnightDisciple]

Sun Walker frowned a bit.

 

"Self-important melodrama while further desecrating the dead is most distasteful."

 

There was a blur of motion, and suddenly the monkey-featured man was next to one of the beasts still on the ground. His body twirled through a complicated set of motions that built up momentum, ending on him delivering a spin-kick that looking like it could break concrete, right to the beast's shoulder. It was honestly a fairly sloppy hit, but it still connected. 

 

The weaponless warrior landed in a crouch, his lashing tail at odds with his positively serene face.

 

"I believe I shall deny you the use of your toys."

[Gizmo]

The half-snake monstrosity seemed unphased by Sun Walker's barrage but it did turn its attention for Arrowhawk to focus on the serene simian, parts of its tail recognizable as rib bones clattering against each other like a rattlesnake's warning as it slithered forward.

 

Set had been surprisingly quiet throughout the unfolding chaos, his narrowed gazed never leaving Typhon. Rolling his shoulders, the godling sprouted great avian wings filled in with deep russet feathers before launching himself skyward, the sun at his back. "Why now, Father of Nothing?" he growled, clenched fingers looking more like talons and eyes blazing with ages old enmity. "Why here? What called you out from under Mount Etna to befoul my lands?"

"Mayhaps I merely missed thee, brother," the other young man called back, lacing his fingers under his chin like a wistful schoolgirl and batting his eyelashes.

"I be no brother to you!" Set spat back, voice nearly cracking with anger. "Geb be not Gaia, wretch!"

Even without pupils it was clear that Typhon was rolling his eyes as he sighed, "Not truly what I meant, but very well. Pay attention, Set. The star beast comes and whatever name thee use the Earth faces her final hours! How could I deny myself one last terrible rampage, eh? Not when I found myself invited!" His smile widened slightly as he made a show of adjusting the collar of his raiment.

That seemed to take Set aback for a moment, his wings pushing him back the span of a step. "...who?" he managed, his voice quieted and ringing hollow as though the wind had been knocked out of him.

"Thy know how the Greeks confused us," Typhon smirked, his voice singsong sweet. "I suppose we all look alike, we monsters, hmm? And those scrolls can be so confusing..."

"Who, Typhon?!" Set's voice regained its volume and above the sky rumbled in warning.

The beast in human flesh shrugged theatrically. "Admittedly I didn't catch the mortal's name." His grin widened well beyond what a fully human mouth could have managed. "When the star beast's children came he thought he was calling thee for aid. Should have taken greater pains with the translation, eh?"

Set's response was an inarticulate roar of primal fury as crimson lightning lashed down from the heavens, striking Typhon squarely in the chest. Though the bolt of storm and chaos pushed the fiend back slightly where arrows had been ignored, the answering thunder was nearly overshadowed by the volume of Typhon's laughter.

[Raveled]

Miras looked up at the monsters towering above all of them and felt a touch of fear. She forced herself to put that aside, though; there were sayings about what happened when big things fell, after all. And suddenly, the magus smiled as the perfect idea popped into her head. Shaking back the sleeves of her robes, she rose her hands into the air and began chanting in Arabic. "<As mice hide from cats, hide us from these devils,>" she said as color gathered in geometric patterns, racing out to cover an area hundreds of feet across. "<Oh God, shield us from their sight and grant us victory!>"

With a sudden roar that filled the senses, the sand sprang up from the desert floor and swirled around the battlefield, creating a blinding, choking veil that effectively put everyone in their own little chaotic bubble. Before they could react, though, the storm faded to transparency around the heroes, like a bad animated effect. They could see clearly across the battlefield to where Typhon and his children were still flailing blindly.

[Gizmo]

Typhon raised one arm to shield his eyes from the sudden sand storm before abruptly stopping and lowering it with a resumed grin. "Oh ho! Well done, well done indeed! Not entirely mortal, hm? Shame thy still be aging so poorly. Ah well!" The obnoxious titan flexed his form inward and white, feathered wings erupted from first his shoulder blades, unhindered by his attire, then smaller sets of wings from his fore arms and calves. A few wing beats brought him up into the air from the roof of the ruin and level with Set, largely ignoring the illusory sand buffeting about him.

His twisted children were apparently less perceptive, roaring in alarm and anger at the screen of sand and wind assaulting them. The massive snake-like creature ground its skull teeth and whipped its tail out in the direction in which it had seen Sun Walker, the titanic coils knocking over dunes and sending bits of ruined necropolis flying. The half-machine, half-skin and bone chimaera thought to similarly swat at Miras with its claws and deadly tail but the time mage was long gone from the place it was attacking.

[Gizmo]

"Listen not!" Sekhmet roared above the din of battle, fists enveloped by golden flame as she raced into the thick of things. She was addressing the entire group but in truth it was Set's reactions that most worried her. She had to admit to herself that she had become accustomed to the betrayer's relatively carefree attitude of showboating heroics interspersed with occasional bouts of self-indulgent brooding, almost to the point of forgetting over whom she had been tasked to keep vigil. This rage, though, this righteous fury Typhon seemed intent on stoking was new and she did not think it would lead anywhere desirable. "He borrows on the power of these constructs!" she continued, pounding away at the lashing coils of the house-sized monster attacking Sun Walker, for all her blows seemed to do little more than irritate the beast. "He can only have brought a sliver of his essence to bear on the back of a hasty ritual calling!"

[Ecalsneerg]

Arrowhawk ducked into a crouch as the battle raged around him. The monsters were huge, and he seemingly couldn't hurt Typhon with mortal weapons. But he was sure if he got close, he could improvise something. Would falls hurt him? Buildings? Couldn't hurt to try.

 

He notched an explosive arrow and fired it between the giant snake monster's eyes in a single fluid movement. As the explosive detonated, he swept his arrow hand back, sweeping his cape down low to throw piles of desert sand up into the air, swirling amidst the illusion of sandstorm. There was no substitute for the real thing. 

 

When the sand had settled once more... the archer was gone.

[Gizmo]

The serpentine giant hissed in anger and confusion as the explosive arrow caught it squarely in the face, sending it flailing its humanoid arms wildly as it reared backward and crashed into one of the ancient, sand covered mausoleums. Ichor mixed with silvery, metallic fluid sprayed from the ruined right side of its skull like face, staining the sand but only momentarily stunning the unnatural creature. To its side the similarly massive mockery of an eagle focused its attentions of Meatheral in his stoney earth elemental form. Using its great wings to propel itself just barely into the air, it rent at the hero with its metal tipped talons along with its bleached bone beak, supernaturally sharp as they pried violently at living rock.

[KnightDisciple]

As the tail of the horrific machine-beast raced toward him, Sun Walker simply stood there, calmly, his hands grasped before him in a meditative position, his own tail barely twitching behind him. And then the dust and sand and debris were swirling around, real and not imaginary, and he was obscured...

 

Until it settled enough to show him still standing there, fully intact, not so much as a hair harmed. The snake-monster's tail had embedded itself in the sand right next to him, having clearly missed him by an inch or less. The ape-man seemed utterly unperturbed. He glanced at the tail, and then up into the air toward Typhon, then nodded. He then spoke to the snake-creature, oddly enough.

 

"I thank the tormented souls tied to your desecrated body that they will forgive me for this, but I need some assistance."

 

And with a graceful flip, he was standing on top of the bony creature as easily as if on flat ground. At which point he proceeded to quickly hit a speed equivalent to a high-performance car that's on a racetrack or desert highway, quickly reaching the shoulder of the now-stunned monstrosity, before ever-so-carefully placing one foot on top of its roaring head before going airborne. The speed he had built up, combined with the use of the lamia-construct as a ramp, allowed him to actually reach Typhon's rather distracted personage. At which point his tail lashed out and wrapped around the waist and neck of the so-called Father of Monsters. Sun Walker himself quickly followed suit, his arms wrapping up in a classic full nelson hold, while his legs locked around the Titan's own. His tail, showing its true length and strength now, continued to wind about the neck, waist, and torso of the desecrator of the dead until he was rather thoroughly (and a bit fuzzily) bound.

 

"You are quite rude, did you know that? On top of desecrating those resting in peace, I mean. Your manner of speech is most unflattering for one of such a supposedly high station."

[Gizmo]

A startled Typhon struggled against the simian martial artist's tail to no avail, the mortal shell he'd commandeered no match for the extra appendage's celestial might. With the Father of all Monster's six wings bound and no longer keeping them aloft, the pair dropped down atop the half-covered ruins once again, Sun Walker's effortless grace allowing him to handle the landing considerably better than his prisoner.
 
Set flew a few paces worth of distance toward them through the air, somewhat calmer now that Typhon appeared to be well in hand though he evidently didn't trust his own patience well enough to come any closer just yet. "He knows," the godling informed Sun Walker flatly, tendrils of malicious looking shadowstuff dripping from his fingers as he glared at their enemy. "His manner be in discourteous imitation of my own."

For his part Typhon continued to struggle against his fur-covered bonds, incensed. "Grah! What base trickery be this?! No mortal limb may touch me!"

"Ah, I am an ungracious host," Set replied with a thin smile that was far more forced than his usual easy smirk. "Typhon, meet Sun Walker, scion of the esteemed Sun Wukong."

"Phaw, the stone ape was no god!" Typhon spat angrily.

"Nor are you, titan," Set countered coldly before tossing a handful of the inky substance gathering in his palm at Typhon's exposed face, the shadows splattering like tar across his stolen eyes.

[Raveled]

Concealed inside her own sandstorm, Miras smiled to herself as the three-headed monster struck against where she had been only moments before. Confident that the power she had pumped into the storm would last some time, she instead drew on her knowledge of the Master Mage Deosil, reaching out for Typhon's child and intoning in Latin. "Tempus observat and tempus occido. You are a monster out of your time. Feel the unlived centuries drag at your feet, terror from prehistory!" A silver clockface appeared above each of the monster's three heads, the hands of the clocking slowing down to a slow tick, as the temporal magic sought to drag it to a standstill.

[Gizmo]

The metal-and-bone chimaera's movements hitched as its heads moved about erratically, trying to find its attacker in the illusory sandstorm. While not entirely immobilized it was obviously sluggish, even its horrific nature feeling the effects of its altered frame of temporal reference.

"Grah, ENOUGH!" Typhon shouted, trashing violently in the grip of Sun Walker's tail. "Ants! Specks! KNOW DESPAIR!" The shadowstuff covering half of his face began to sizzle and melt as sickly green light began to seep from first his eye and then mouth like beacons. All around him the dead eyes and gaping maws of his titanic thralls similarly burned with magics that would have been better off forgotten. Meatheral felt his rocky elemental form shudder, struggling to hold onto the transformation while the sands of Miras' illusion burned away like sawdust caught at the edge of a bonfire.

Set paled noticeably and recoiled reflexively in the air. "Oh, you cheating @#$%," he swore softly before attempting a cry of warning. "Walker--!"

Before the godling could finish his sentence his Greco-Roman counterpart exploded in light and blood and bone, his stolen form ripping itself apart from within, throwing the celestial martial artist backward. One by one the gigantic creatures followed suit, their silver star metal shattering into skittering spider-things while their desecrated ivory and sinew flew into a whirlwind just as it had when they had first formed. This time the materials all converged in one place, stacking atop each other and taking horrible shape.

Its limbs strode the sands as a colossus, draconic scales patched with oil rig framework. Its roar was a physical wall of force, the electronic distortion echoing in triplicate from each of its mouths. Its fins tipped not with spines but the unmistakably sinister barrels of automatic weapons shaped by a hand with distinctly ancient sensibilities. The heroes stood in the shadow of the hydra reborn from the darkest of sorcery and science combined. All three of its fanged mouths opened in unison and nuclear purple un-light poured forth in a beam of pure destruction, washing over Set until he was completely obscured from view and the sand behind him was scorched jet black.

Sekhmet let out an inarticulate roar of disbelief, stumbling backward. It quickly turned to rage as she dropped to all fours in the form of a lioness, charging across the sands toward the impossible beast, heedless of the danger. "NAY!" was her only battlecry as she savagely attacked one of the hydra's limbs, doing everything she could to attract its attention.

[Ecalsneerg]

Arrowhawk fought the urge to curse as he kept his cover in the sand getting kicked up now there was a giant multiple-headed monster. Gods. Goddamn. Why did everything have to be so overblown and stupid? How did the myth go? Cut off the heads? Hack off the... gun barrels? 

 

Well. That wasn't bloody likely. He quickly pulled an explosive arrow from his quiver, nocking it as he moved. He kicked a plume of sand up into the air as he drew the string back, aiming for the base of the thing's necks. He let the explosive fly, immediately darting to the side afterwards, aiming to plunge himself back into the swirling sand.

But he was too slow, the sand settling quickly. Leaving him a man dressed in black in an open expanse of sand. Well. It was hardly ideal stealth conditions.