"You know this means it's time," Rui said, placing the report on the Emperor Dal's nightstand.

"Yeah," Hast strained as he set his bad leg on the ground. "But you've read it just the same as me. Since they're coming here, at least give me the chance to talk with them first." Rui Law bowed her head, but she was stopped as she moved to help Hast up. "No, no, that's fine. Today, at least, I think I can make it to my throne on my own." Despite the grunts of strain and pain, the Royal Executioner honored the Emperor Dal's request, and simply left the door open for him as she went to don her own equipment.

As he threw on his golden robe, he looked over his gilded room. Despite his eternal love of the golden shine, he couldn't care less about the symbols of wealth anymore. Instead, his focus was solely on a necklace crudely fashioned from a sandbeast tooth, one that predated the Dal Empire's founding. Putting it on, he grasped the tooth tightly as he limped towards his throne, focusing on the memories the necklace brought him to distract from the pain. As he finally made it to his throne, he stole a single glance at the jet-black armor of his Royal Executioner, as well as the crimson shine of her greataxe.

The formless mass of smoke stopped for a moment - even the tentacles and tendrils that intermittedly stretched from the smoke froze. When it answered, it seemed like it was asked the dumbest question possible. "No, you're just a construct for abstract thought."

"Do I exist?"

Two trees - connected at the base, with each's roots reaching towards the branches of the other - barely registered a tone with its answer. "No. Well, no more than light or wind exists."

"Do I exist?"

The orb formed from outstretched hands turned so the hole exposing the eye in the center of its body would be visible. It just laughed.

"Do I exist?"

The shadow and slime - both in a constant state of changing their form - seemed to be in agreement. "You're just some object we made to help us pass time."

"Do I exist?"

Despite the eight hands extending from its back constantly shifting their positions, the tapir-like entity did not wake up.

"Do I exist?

"That the last one?"  A short-haired man used the sleeve of his (standard-issue) leather armor to help wipe the sand-wolf's guts off his shortsword (also standard-issue), as he looked around the pit that formed the sandbeast den.

"Yeah, looks like.  It just me, or were those tougher than normal?"  The responder was the taller of the two women of the trio, who wore a customized variant of the normal armor - a privilege to denote the commander of adventurer groups - that was dyed a darker shade of brown, and tailored to help emphasize her figure more than the normal set.  Without waiting for a response, she started to drag the four wolves' corpses together.

"That's... That wasn't normal?  Oh thank Sol."  The final - and newest - member of the group was finally able to catch her breath as she stopped gripping her shortsword's handle like it was a cliffside branch.  Just before she could collapse from exhaustion, though, she noticed their leader finishing arranging the sandbeast corpses, and was suddenly aware of her stomach turning when she thought of having to help skin and butcher the beasts.

"Petra: You're helping me with skinning.  Alyssa: You're on den-clearing."  

""Got it!""  They were in complete unison with the desire to avoid the other's assignment.

With her adrenaline gone, Alyssa took advantage of the isolation inside the den to empty her stomach against the far wall.  Afterwards, she went through the pack she had thrown down by the entrance, and set the explosive kit and a glowstone lantern down in the middle of the den.  It took only a few minutes to finish putting it together - the only trouble being the casing being stubborn to lock.  Wanting to avoid getting roped into skinning duty, she set the finished explosive down gently and took a look around.  The den looked normal, compared to the diagrams she saw during initiation.  The main part of the den was egg-shaped, with smaller outlets around the sides for sleeping, and one long ramp leading to the desert outside.  With the initiation information as a reference point, nothing in this den seemed to suggest that the fierce beasts they fought should be any stronger than normal.

Alyssa noticed a glint in one of the sleeping holes.  She picked up a small, smooth, triangular rock that shone like a gemstone against the light.  When she felt enough time had passed that she wouldn't have to start skinning, she pocketed her find, started the detonation timer, and left the den.  She seemed to have misjudged the time she needed to kill, as the skinning was long-finished, and the hides and meat already stored in the groups' spare packs.  The bones and whatever meat couldn't fit were left out, as there wasn't much to do with them besides acting as bait for the flying types of sandbeast.

"Trouble with the casing?  See, I knew it wasn't just me."

"Uh...yeah.  It was just this one den for today, miss Alia?"  In a bit of coincidental timing, the den's collapse acted as punctuation, which caused the leader to let out a quiet chuckle.

It only took a couple of hours for the group to make the return south to the great step-pyramid that formed the empire's capitol city of Carcos.  On reaching the first layer, the group split up: Alia, as the leader, would sell off their haul of hides and meat to form the group's bonus pay, while Alyssa and Petra were relieved for the day.  While Petra went off to do his own thing, Alyssa went straight for their assigned barracks to sleep.

The next morning, Alyssa managed to be the first to wake.  She just finished changing into a clean uniform when her leader woke up.

"Hm, yer up?  That's...yeah, just - just wait in the mess hall or something.  I'll get...*yawn* Petra up."

Half an hour later, the two finally joined Alyssa, who had just finished off a plate of spicy fried eggs.  Petra started on his own breakfast while their leader went over their day's assignment.  "So, we've been picked at random to help some angels escort some envoy who's coming back home."  Hearing this, Alyssa perked up a bit.  Barely a week into her service, and she was already able to visit home - at least, she assumed that, as Port Hali was the only port in the desert heart of the empire.

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