The desert village Issa was built around a small oasis in the east of the Sloan desert. Its streets were outlined by typical Sloan-style flat-roofed-houses, which allowed for villagers to jump from rooftop to rooftop instead of using the boring streets. The village was surrounded by a sandstone wall with one single gate. The gate was guarded around the clock by two guards.
This particular day, the young Jembles was on guard duty together with Todd, a much older Dragoon. Todd had recently bought a house in the village and was closing in on his retirement. The soon to be veteran would have his pension party in a few days. He looked forward to that day. Todd barely remembered the days in which he could jump over the rooftops without the noise of his bones complaining.
“There’s people approaching,” said Jembles with a nod towards the horizon.
“Really now?” Todd squinted at the blurry bits that his fellow guard was pointing at. The elf only ever spoke using Song because his mouth was otherwise engaged; speaking was made impossible by the amount of coins he had tucked away in there. Carrying coins in your mouth was a disappearing art. This fact made Todd long for the old days, in which youthful Dragoons were still taught proper discipline. The kids these days had no idea how good they had it. The world was a safer place now, with a lot less daemons running around.
“Yah,” said Jembles. “Looks like Chroma.”
“Ah, good.”
It took the Chroma little over an hour to approach the gate. The caravan consisted of five red orcs and three squig. None of them looked at the guards when Jembled said:
“Good afternoon.”
The Chroma mumbled something and let Jembles look through their bags. The guards were both used to dealing with Chroma. Generally the orcs were a rowdy bunch, a bit gruff or snappish at times, but always in a friendly manner. Today, however, the orcs were quiet. Perhaps, Jembles thought, it had to do with the weather.
“Looks all good, Todd,” the guard said. Todd nodded approvingly. “Welcome to Issa, the trading post is in the- ahh, you guys know that already.”
When the orcs had passed through the gate, Jembles sighed and said:
“Pff, don’t you think it’s hot today, Todd?”
Todd shook his head and sang: “Back in my day, there would be days the palms of our hands would be so sweaty, we could have sand-ball fights.”
He stared off in the distance with a hint of a smile on his stuffed face.
“No, I’m serious Todd. Also there’s this weird sound.”
Jembles looked up into the sky. It sounded like someone was laughing at him, a very slow, monotonous laugh.
“Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.”
“Eh, Todd, do you think that is normal?” He pointed up at the sun.
***
Mano stood up from the roof and stretched his back before he hopped off onto the streets below. That had been a nice afternoon nap. He yawned contentedly and looked around. After the flood of the eastern continent he had moved in with the Sloan and had always been considered a foreigner, despite the Sloan being foreigners themselves. That that had never bothered him, Mano had always felt like an outsider and he felt like that role fit him well. However, after the Sloan had found out that he carried silver weapons and specialized in killing daemons they had been very welcoming. His gold armour was stylish and would remind an untrained eye of that of the Dragoons.
He went on his way home when he passed a stranger pulling a cart behind him. With large, round eyes, the hairy stranger looked up at him and Mano grumbled:
“Good afternoon.”
The trader grinned back at him, it was a wide smile that exposed his frugivore teeth. A trader, simian spawn, thought Mano.
“Well hello,” the trader responded and he smacked one of the bags on the cart to stop it from snarling.
“You new in town?” said Mano.
“I arrived last week,” the trader said, “The name’s Bill. I’m an acquisitor of special things.”
“Special things, hmm?”
Mano looked at the objects on display in the cart, they looked mostly like trash to him. Mano huffed. It took a fool to call this trash special, he thought.
“Ah,” said Bill, “Are you interested in acquiring something today?”
“Hmmf,” said Mano, “I’m just looking.”
Bills eyes trailed off to something behind Mano.
“Please excuse me for a moment, then.” he said and pulled his cart towards a group of Chroma that was walking towards the center of the village. Mano shrugged and continued walking to his house.
“Whatcha got?” Bill asked the group of orcs. One of the orcs looked at Bill and said:
“Squig.”
***
Todd squinted at the sun, his eyes were not what they used to be. Then his lips parted for a moment as his jaw fell down slightly in awe, the coins that he held in his mouth were visible for just a few seconds.
“Jembles, I have never seen that before in my awesomely long, long life.”
“Todd, something is wrong. We need to find out what it is, but we can’t leave our post.”
Jembles turned towards the village and noticed Mano walking towards them.
“Hey, you!”
Mano froze and looked swiftly left and right for a place to hide or someone else to blame.
“Mano, come over here,” Jembles explained, “I need your help.”
Mano walked up to the guard, his golden armor shining even more brightly than Todd’s in the afternoon sun.
“Do you see that up there?” asked Jembles and he pointed at the sun.
“Hmm,” said Mano, “That does look familiar. I cannot remember where I have seen it before.”
“I think- Maybe- I noticed it when the Chroma arrived. Maybe it has something to do with them. Could you ask them for us, so that we can remain at the gate?”
“Sure thing cap’n,” said Mano and he turned around. With a strong jump he landed on one of the rooftops of the houses and took a shortcut to catch up with the orcs. A few jumps later he landed on the town square surrounding the oasis.
“Good morning gentlemen,” he said, “Mind if I ask you some questions.”
The orcs huddled together and stood still, apart from some twitching. There was something off about them, Mano could smell it. They didn’t smell like orcs, but they did smell very familiar.
“They’re here to sell squig,” said Bill, who looked at Mano with heightened anticipation.
“Where did you come from?” asked Mano.
One of the orcs pointed towards the gate.
Bill came closer to Mano and whispered in his ear: “They’re hiding something.”
“Like what?”
“They are disguised.”
Mano nodded, the monkey confirmed his suspicions. He slowly reached for one of his silver swords.
“You are not Chroma,” he said, “Tell me, what are you?”
The orc stopped pointing and started yelling: “Heeeeeelp!”
Then the others chimed in:
“Aaaaaah!”
“Heeeeelp!”
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