The first thing that registered was the heat. It wasn't the gentle warmth of a summer day, but a brutal, oppressive force that pressed down from a white-hot sky and radiated back up from the sand in shimmering, distorting waves. It was a physical weight on his shoulders, a dry, suffocating blanket in his lungs.
The second thing was the light. It was absolute, merciless, bleaching the colour from the world. It reflected off the endless dunes in a billion blinding points, forcing his eyes into a permanent, pained squint.
Alistar blinked, his mind struggling to shed the last vestiges of the sterile, cold room and slot into this new, hellish reality. He was standing. He was clad not in his threadbare jacket, but in the worn, sand-coloured linen and leather of a soldier. A simple leather cuirass sat on his torso, and a sheathed short sword hung at his hip. A spear, its shaft smooth from use, was gripped loosely in his right hand.
So. Not a slave. A soldier. Interesting.
He took a quick, silent inventory. No shackles. No bleeding feet. His body, while still lean, felt… different. There was a coiled resilience in his muscles he didn't recognize, a latent power humming just beneath his skin. The chronic ache of malnourishment was gone, replaced by the immediate, searing discomfort of the desert.
He looked around, his movements slow, deliberate, taking in the scene without drawing attention.
They were a caravan of perhaps two dozen soldiers, all dressed similarly, their faces hardened and shaded by wide-brimmed helmets. They moved with the weary discipline of men on a long, unpleasant assignment. And winding through them, connected by a long, heavy chain that clinked with a dull, rhythmic finality, was a line of slaves.
They were a pitiful sight. Hollow-eyed, their skin burnt and cracked by the sun, their feet leaving bloody prints in the scorching sand. They shuffled forward, their movements a testament to utter exhaustion and despair. The contrast was stark. He, Alistar, was on the side with the weapons, the water skins, the agency. They had nothing.
A test of potential, the old policeman had said. Calibrated to the aspirant. Starting as a soldier was certainly better than starting as a slave. But the Spell was never kind. This advantage would come with a price. He was sure of it.
"Hey. New fish. You planning on standing there until you cook?"
The voice was a dry rasp, like stones grinding together. Alistar turned. The speaker was a grizzled veteran, his face a roadmap of old scars and sun-beaten wrinkles. He had the look of a man who had been sucking on desert grit for decades. He gestured with his chin towards the line of slaves. "Eyes on the cargo. They stumble, you prod 'em. They fall, you decide if they're worth the water to get back up. That's your job."
Alistar met the man's gaze. There was no malice in it, just a flat, pragmatic exhaustion. "Understood," Alistar said, his own voice sounding foreign to him, yet steady.
The veteran, who introduced himself as Kael, fell into step beside him as the caravan lurched forward again. "Don't get soft-eyed looking at them," Kael advised, spitting a thick glob of phlegm onto the sand where it sizzled briefly. "They're not people. Not anymore. They're offerings. Sanctified kindling."
Alistar kept his face a neutral mask, but his mind, always a whirlwind of calculation, latched onto the word. Offerings. Sanctified.
"Kindling for what?" he asked, his tone devoid of curiosity, merely seeking operational clarity.
Kael gave him a sidelong glance, as if assessing whether the new recruit could handle the truth. "The Altar of the Fallen Sun. Our destination. Abandoned shrine out in the deep sand. Command wants it… reconsecrated. Or something. Don't rightly know the specifics. Don't need to. Our job is to get them there." He jerked his thumb towards the slaves. "When we arrive, they get sacrificed. Their life force, or whatever the mystics call it, is used to power up the old place. Make it usable for the Legion again."
A coldness settled in Alistar's gut, a chill that had nothing to do with the desert heat. It was the same cold he'd felt in the police station vault—the cold of a brutal, impersonal logic. These people were to be slaughtered like cattle for a tactical objective.
Illusions, the policeman had said. Phantoms. For your own sanity, believe it.
He looked at a slave, a young man not much younger than himself, who stumbled and was jerked back to his feet by the chain, a whimper escaping his cracked lips. The sound was terribly real.
Illusions, Alistar repeated to himself, forging the thought into a shield for his conscience. They are not real. This is a test.
"So," Alistar said, turning his gaze from the slave to the endless, shimmering horizon. "We are escorts for a delivery of fuel."
Kael let out a short, barking laugh. "Fuel. Aye. That's one way to put it. A grim one."
"It's an accurate one," Alistar replied, his voice flat. "Sentiment is a luxury. One that gets you killed in a place like this."
Kael looked at him with a flicker of new interest. "You're a cold little bastard, aren't you? Didn't expect that from a fresh-faced newbie."
Alistar didn't answer. He was too busy observing, analyzing. The soldiers moved with a practiced economy of motion, conserving every ounce of energy. They drank from their water skins in small, measured sips. Their eyes constantly scanned the dunes, not for external threats, but for signs of weakness in the slaves and in each other.
He saw a younger soldier, his face still holding a shred of its boyish softness, walking closer to the slave line. The boy soldier's hand hovered near his own water skin as he looked at the parched slaves with a pained expression.
Fool, Alistar thought, not with contempt, but with clinical assessment. Your empathy is a leak in your hull. In this desert, you patch every leak, or you sink.
His internal monologue was a silent, running commentary. The chain is the biggest vulnerability. A single point of failure. If it breaks, or if a large enough group of slaves panics, it could cause a cascade of problems. The senior soldiers, like Kael, position themselves at the flanks and the rear. The new ones, like me and the boy, are placed near the front, where the discipline is strongest. A sensible, if cynical, deployment.
His thoughts were interrupted by a commotion. A slave, an older woman, collapsed. She didn't stumble; she simply folded, her body giving out entirely. The chain pulled taut, causing the slaves ahead and behind her to stagger.
"Hold!" Kael's voice cracked like a whip.
The caravan ground to a halt. The silence, broken only by the moan of the hot wind and the ragged breathing of the slaves, was profound.
The boy soldier rushed forward. "Water! She needs water!"
He fumbled for his flask, but Kael was there in an instant, his hand clamping down on the boy's wrist. "Stand down, Revik."
"But she's—"
"She's done," Kael said, his voice low and final. "Look at her."
The woman was motionless, her chest barely rising. Her eyes were open, staring at the blistering sky without seeing it.
"It's a trick!" a voice hissed from the slave line. A shifty-looking man with desperate, darting eyes was staring at the woman with a mixture of fear and fury. "She fakes! She steals water for herself! Do not trust her!"
The broad-shouldered slave in front of the shifty man grunted. "Quiet, worm. The dead do not steal."
Alistar watched, detached. The dynamics of the condemned. The strong resent the weak for hastening the end. The desperate look for any advantage, even imaginary ones.
Kael drew his sword. The sound of steel sliding from leather was horribly clean in the thick air.
Revik, the young soldier, paled. "What are you doing? We can't just—"
"It's a mercy, boy," Kael said, his face like stone. "And a necessity. A dead body rots. A living one that can't walk slows us down, consumes resources, and damages morale. This is not the inner court. This is the deep desert. Our morality is written in water and shade. We have little of both."
He stepped towards the woman.
"Wait."
The word was quiet, but it cut through the tension. All eyes turned to Alistar. He hadn't moved from his position, his spear still resting casually on his shoulder.
Kael raised an eyebrow. "You have a objection, new fish? Feeling sentimental after all?"
"No," Alistar said. His gaze was fixed on the shifty slave who had accused the woman of faking. "I have a question of efficiency." He pointed his spear tip at the shifty man. "You. You seem… energetic. You think she is faking to get water. A fair suspicion. So, you can have her share of the burden."
The shifty man's eyes widened in confusion and panic.
Alistar looked at Kael. "If she is dead, we leave her. If she is faking, she will get up when she realizes the chain is being removed and her ruse has earned her nothing but a heavier load. Either way, the problem is solved without wasting a blade's edge or spilling blood that will attract scavengers." He paused, his eyes cold and analytical. "Spilling blood in this heat is… messy. Inefficient."
A slow grin spread across Kael's scarred face. It wasn't a pleasant sight. "Cold and clever. I like it." He nodded to two other soldiers. "Do it. Unshackle her. Add her chain-length to his."
The soldiers moved in. As the rusty shackle was pried from the woman's ankle, she did not stir. She was, indeed, dead. The shifty slave began to wail as the extra length of heavy chain was fastened to his own leg iron.
"No! Please! The weight! I will not make it!"
Alistar turned away, already dismissing the incident. The caravan began to move again. As he passed the weeping slave, his internal monologue was clinical. Your survival probability was already low. Now it has decreased by approximately twenty percent. But the overall efficiency of the caravan has increased. A net positive. Sentiment is a luxury.
Revik fell into step beside him, his face a storm of conflict. "That was… cruel."
Alistar glanced at him. "It was logical. Cruelty implies a desire to inflict suffering. I have no such desire. I merely solved a problem with the optimal available solution."
"You talked about her like she was a broken cart!" Revik hissed, keeping his voice low.
"She was," Alistar stated. "A broken component in a machine. We repaired the machine." He looked at Revik, truly seeing him for the first time. The boy had kind eyes. In this place, that was a fatal flaw. "Your compassion is a weakness. It will get you killed. And worse, it might get me killed if I'm standing next to you when your poor decisions backfire."
Revik stared at him, aghast. "How can you be so… empty?"
Empty? Alistar almost laughed. He was a maelstrom of observation, calculation, and a feral, burning will to live. There was no room for anything else. Empathy was a software module he couldn't afford to run; it consumed too much processing power.
"I am focused," Alistar corrected him. "On the only thing that matters in this trial. Survival."
He picked up his pace, leaving the troubled young soldier behind. He needed a moment to himself. To do what the old policeman had said. The first thing.
He focused his will, just as he had in the square before walking into the police station. He thought of words like status, Aspect, information.
And the world responded.
Shimmering, heat-haze runes materialized in the air before his eyes. The script was alien, angular and sharp, but their meaning flowed directly into his consciousness, as clear as his own thoughts.
Name: Alistar
True Name: —
Rank: Aspirant
Soul Core: Dormant
Memories: —
Echoes: —
Attributes: [Advancement], [Enlightened], [Super Regeneration]
Aspect: [Sealed Beyonder]
Aspect Description: [A Beyonder is an entity that exists outside the known axioms of reality, a living paradox. Their nature is one of potential and contradiction. A Sealed Beyonder is the same, except their inherent paradox is bound, suppressed, and dormant. The Seal itself is a mystery, a lock for which a key must be found, or a door that must be broken down.]
For a long moment, Alistar simply stared, the searing desert, the groaning slaves, the grim soldiers—all of it faded into a dull hum in the background.
Sealed Beyonder.
The description was nothing like the straightforward "Swordsman" or "Brawler" the old policeman had described. It was cryptic, arrogant, and infuriatingly vague. A living paradox. Potential and contradiction. Bound and suppressed.
So this is the price, he thought, a grim smile touching his lips. I am a soldier, not a slave. But my power, the very thing that is supposed to help me survive, is locked away. A weapon in a box I cannot open.
He focused on his Attributes. They were similarly enigmatic, but held more immediate promise.
[Advancement]: Your capacity for growth is abnormal. You learn, adapt, and evolve at a rate that defies conventional understanding.
[Enlightened]: Your mind operates on a heightened level of perception and comprehension. You see patterns, connections, and underlying truths that others miss.
[Super Regeneration]: Your physical body possesses a potent, accelerated healing factor, allowing you to recover from wounds, toxins, and fatigue at a supernatural pace.
[Advancement]… so I can get better, faster. [Enlightened]… that explains the constant analysis, the hyper-awareness. It's not just a habit; it's a power. And [Super Regeneration]… He looked down at his hands, at the skin already reddening under the brutal sun. He could feel a faint, tingling energy just beneath the surface, a latent promise of repair. In this environment, that might be the most valuable thing of all. Water is scarce, wounds fester quickly. But I can heal.
His Aspect, however, remained a frustrating cipher. A "Sealed Beyonder." What did that do? Could he unseal it? How?
No useless Aspects, only useless people, the policeman's voice echoed in his memory.
Fine, Alistar thought, dismissing the runes. I'll work with what I have. The Attributes are a formidable toolkit. The Aspect… is a problem for future me. Current me has to survive long enough for future me to exist.
The day wore on, a slow, agonizing march through a furnace. The sun was a merciless tyrant. Alistar used his [Enlightened] mind not just to observe the people, but the environment itself. He noted the patterns of the wind as it sculpted the dunes, the types of hardy, thorny plants that clung to life, the faint, almost invisible tracks of desert creatures.
He saw the world as a system of interlocking parts, a machine of survival. And he was a cog in that machine, albeit a cog that was learning, adapting, and healing at an accelerated rate.
During a brief rest stop, as the soldiers huddled in the scant shade of a large rock formation and the slaves were left exposed in the sun, Revik approached him again. The young soldier's lips were cracked, his eyes hollow.
"We are monsters, Alistar," he whispered, his voice raw. "We are leading them to their deaths. For what? To power some old, forgotten shrine?"
Alistar took a small, measured sip from his water skin, feeling the liquid spread a revitalizing warmth through him that was amplified by his [Super Regeneration]. He could feel his taxed muscles recovering, his sun-scorched skin already beginning the process of repair.
"The 'why' is irrelevant," Alistar said, his voice low and even. "It is the mission parameter. Our survival is tied to its completion."
"But there must be another way! We could… we could let them go. At night. They might have a chance."
Alistar looked at him as if he had just suggested they all flap their arms and fly to the moon. "That is the most idiotic thing I have heard since arriving here."
Revik flinched.
"Think, Revik," Alistar said, his [Enlightened] mind laying out the logic with pitiless clarity. "Use the mind the gods gave you. If we release them, what happens? First, they are unarmed, dehydrated, and disoriented. Their chance of survival in the deep desert is effectively zero. Second, we would have failed our mission. The Legion does not look kindly on failure. Our own survival probability would drop to near zero. Third, even if by some miracle they survived and we weren't executed, the objective remains. The Altar of the Fallen Sun would still need to be powered. Who do you think the Legion would use then?"
He let the question hang in the blistering air.
Revik's shoulders slumped. "Us."
"Precisely," Alistar said. "Your proposed course of action does not save them. It only ensures we join them in death. A pointless, wasteful gesture." He leaned closer, his pale, shadowed eyes boring into Revik's. "You are confusing feeling bad with doing good. They are not the same. In fact, they are often mutually exclusive. Your desire to alleviate your own guilt would doom everyone. That is not compassion. That is selfishness."
Revik stared at him, his worldview shattering under the cold, brutal hammer of Alistar's logic. He had no rebuttal.
Alistar straightened up. "They are going to die, Revik. That is a fixed variable in this equation. Our only variable is whether we die with them. Since I will not gain any benefit from their pointless early release, and since their sacrifice is required to complete the mission, it is best to let the process proceed as designed. Our duty is not to save them. It is to deliver them, and in doing so, save ourselves."
He turned and walked away, leaving Revik to grapple with the harsh geometry of survival. As he found a spot to sit, his mind was already elsewhere, turning over the problem of his Sealed Aspect, analyzing the description for any clue, any hidden lever in the text.
he sighed and after a few moments let it be, deciding to push more focus on the mediate problem of how to proceed either help free the slaves and appose the soldiers or assist the soldiers with their use of the slaves.
this was truly a puzzling thought since both paths gave significant risks