Koruk opened his eyes, and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling stared back, the rows of bricks seeming to twist and warp into familiar forms. Faces. Scenes. Beside him a naked female form was writhing in her sleep. Her touch against his skin caused his entire body to prickle.

  The orc’s body vibrated with energy. He felt as if he could reach out toward the sky and pull it down. The universe was his to command. Koruk leaped to his feet, the motion feeling mechanical, as though it was not him rising, but the entire world sinking as he pushed off against it.

  “Whoh.”

  The party seemed to have petered out, and the other orcs were laying around or staring intently at the walls. All except for the big Bloodmaw. Koruk watched him, dressed in full battle regalia, exit the room out a yawning door in the back. Stealthily, or what he imagined was stealthily, Koruk followed him, creeping through the halls of the building. The floors groaned in protest under his weight, and he realized that he was suddenly very heavy. The back door of the tavern loomed ahead of him. If he could only make it a few more feet…

  With one massive burst of energy, Koruk leapt through the doorway. But instead of finding himself out in the streets, he was in the desert. Red sand dunes surrounded him. The city was gone. Koruk turned around to look back at the tavern, but instead of a comfortable adobe building an enormous black pyramid rose into the sky, seeming to drink in the light from the stars and the moons overhead.

  He heard a chanting, and suddenly all around him were red men. Their faces were expressionless, turned up towards the sky. All at once, the heavens above seemed to catch fire, and the world turned blood red. Red men pushed up against Koruk in a frenzy, a net of arms seeking to smother him. He saw the Bloodmaw climbing the pyramid, pushing towards a shining light at the top. The red men were pursuing him but he cut them down with his axe as they grabbed at his ankles and tried to drag him down.

  Koruk fought against the crowd, desperate to get to the other orc to help him. Red bodies swarmed around him, holding him back. In the struggle somehow he managed to get free, and he ran to the pyramid to help the Bloodmaw, ascending the steps with panting breaths.

  Together the two of them fought side by side throwing aside foes left and right, and after what seemed an age, they reached the top and confronted the light.

  The light seemed to dim as Koruk stared at it, coalescing into a glowing orb above the side of his head. Out of that orb a face began to emerge, bathed in radiance. The face laughed, mockingly, and spoke into his mind.

  “The moons will devour each other. The sun is chained, the stars are silent. The wolf burns with hunger, and turns his eyes towards the pig. The balance of the world sits on a blade’s edge.”

  At this, the face in the light transformed into a monstrous snarling wolf. Koruk raised his axe and struck it down, and it disappeared, along with the light.

  Koruk looked around. The Bloodmaw was gone. The red men were gone. The sky was dark again. He was alone at the top of the pyramid. He looked down, and saw that he was wearing the armour and trophies of the Bloodmaw, and holding his axe. Koruk felt wet, as it started to rain. He felt cold… wait… this wasn’t right…

  Koruk groggily came to, laying face down on a hard brick paved surface. His head swirled, and his vision was fuzzy. He looked around. He seemed to be laying on the ground, surrounded by fruit and smashed wooden debris. He heard a gibbering noise as someone shouted angrily in a foreign language, and a more familiar voice shouting back.

  Moktark put down the water bucket he had dumped on Koruk’s head, and pulled the smaller orc to his feet with a heave. An imp, a merchant maybe, was shouting loudly at them. Moktark chucked a gold ring at him and gave him a rude hand gesture, and supporting Koruk with an arm, led him back to the tavern.

  Koruk felt himself flop down onto a soft straw bed, and he fell asleep. No dreams troubled him.

  The morning greeted Koruk with a throbbing headache that left him unsteady on his feet. He crawled out of bed, the room he was in unfamiliar. It was a sparsely decorated room, featuring three other beds inset into the walls, and a small table in the centre upon which sat a bowl with some sort of black fruit. Koruk ate some and found it agreed with him. As he got his thoughts in order, he realized this must be a room in the tavern. He wondered where Moktark and Oben were.

  He found them downstairs, in the main hall of the tavern. Moktark waved a greeting to him, and Koruk sheepishly approached his friends, rubbing the back of his neck. For some reason he seemed to have a kink in it.

  The tavern had mostly emptied out. Only one guest remained other than his two companions, an old bearded orc who was looking at him with naked amusement in his eyes.

  “Sleep well, little brother?” Moktark asked, grinning.

  “Not really. Who’s this?” Koruk asked, nodding his head towards the old orc.

  “Meet Semthak. He’s going to help us get into the desert.” Moktark said. Semthak held up his hands to stop him.

  “I said only that I wished to hear your tale, young warrior.” Semthak said, smiling and turning to Koruk. “But, that may end up being the case. You look like you had quite a night. Cactus wine didn’t agree with you I take it?”

  Koruk grinned sheepishly.

  “I guess not.”

  “I want to hear about these visions you have, about the desert.” Semthak said, suddenly serious. “But not here. There are too many eyes and ears around. Come join me at my home, where we can talk in private.”

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  Koruk looked to Moktark, who nodded, and then motioned for Semthak to lead on. As the party walked to Semthak’s house, Moktark explained the circumstances of their meeting, and also how they had found Koruk face down in the ruins of a merchant’s fruit stall outside later that night. Koruk winced as he heard the story, but remained tight lipped about his own adventures that night. Oben remained silent as they walked, seeming to be off in his own thoughts.

  Semthak’s house was a low, square building built mostly underground, and set awkwardly in the middle of a group of other similar structures. The entrance was in its flat roof, with a bridge connecting it to the neighbouring buildings. Koruk wasn’t used to how people lived in cities, but he got the impression that this house might not be the most desirable real estate. Regardless, as they climbed down the ladder leading inside, he decided that it seemed comfortable enough.

  Semthak’s home was sparsely decorated, but seemed very lived in and... homey. A small brick firepit sat in the centre of a single large room, surrounded by pillows of a fine make. Herbs and pots of vegetables were heaped up in a corner of the house, and a pile of blankets and pillows in another corner seemed to serve as a bed.

  Semthak lit the fire and put an earthenware kettle over it to boil while the others got their bearings, and he poured out four cups of a refreshing herbal tea for himself and his guests. As the tea cooled, they sat down together before the fire.

  “Now then, I’m interested to hear your story. I have heard some of it but, leave nothing out.”

  Koruk related the story of their adventure, of the visions, of their quest for the desert, of their battles, victories, and defeats. Koruk paused for a bit, and decided to tell the story of his adventure last night as well. This drew out some chuckles and slaps on the back from Moktark, but the old shaman’s attention was rapt, and he simply nodded while sipping at his tea, a faraway look in his eyes. He asked a few followup questions, focusing on the being of light Koruk had seen in his vision.

  After the story was concluded, Semthak sat back and thought in silence for awhile. Eventually he leaned forward, and drank the last of his now cold tea.

  “I too have had such dreams.” He said, after a time. “Although nowhere near as detailed. For me it was little more than a few images, feelings. I’m not originally from Brittle Teeth, you see. Once I was a soot shaman of Zernthod. You know of us, yes?”

  Koruk nodded.

  “You can use magic to create items out of shining metal.”

  “Well, yes we can certainly do that. But there’s more to it. I was a soothsayer. I would read the charcoal in the forges, examine failed castings, that sort of thing. Try to decide if it was a good day or a bad day for a pour. Whether the gods were in a good mood that day. Where the gods had hidden the best ores when they built the world. That sort of thing. I was sitting in my forge meditating, and trying to do the latter, when I began to see visions of the desert. I saw this pyramid as you describe it, and the red sky, although this… being of light is new to me. I knew after the second vision that I could not stay in Zernthod. I would come here, and seek it out.”

  Semthak finished, and sat unspeaking for awhile. He poured himself another cup of tea.

  “And you, a human are you? I have never seen your race of being before. Tell me your story.”

  Oben related his story in brief as he had described it to the orcs. His home was another world very far away, and his sky-boat had fallen from the sky, after it was attacked from the ground somehow. He wanted to go home, but he did not know the way, and so had joined on the adventure to find the black temple, hoping it held answers. He seemed distracted as he told the story, and the old sage’s eyes bored into him all the while but the orc said nothing until the end.

  “Your sudden appearance in this story is… an interesting synchronicity. I have heard of many strange people who supposedly inhabit far off lands, but I’ve never heard of someone from another world entirely before. That shield of yours, Moktark, you mentioned that was part of his ‘sky boat?’”

  Moktark nodded and Semthak examined it for a time in silence.

  “Do you intend to go into the desert and find this pyramid?” Semthak asked.

  “I do.” Koruk replied. He felt emboldened by hearing of the shared vision, and suddenly any doubts as to the authenticity of his dreams had been alleviated. Koruk had never felt more ready for anything.

  “I figured you’d feel that way. As I said I had some interest in going into the desert as well, but a solo trek into that hellish place would be suicidal.”

  “Why not travel with these red… these imps, who seem to know the way?”

  Semthak shook his head.

  “No, the imps can’t be trusted even if you did manage to convince them. Trust me on that.” He said in a low voice.

  “Well, how do they travel through the desert?” Koruk pushed.

  Semthak explained that the imps used sailing barges with which to cross the sands, much like the catamarans used by the Shattered Storm tribe to cross the waves of the sea. They also had animals which could make the journey, Semthak said they were called “camels” and described them, but it seemed that the sandsailers could move across the desert at an incredible pace in comparison to the slow march of the animals.

  Traveling fast meant nothing if one didn’t know where he was going though. The imps maintained wells in the desert, but they kept the locations a guarded secret, for to find the oases was to find their secret cities. They were a paranoid and reclusive people.

  “If that is the case, we should try to get passage on one of these sailing ships and convince the red men to guide us through the desert!” Koruk said, slapping his fist into his palm.

  “No. Haven’t you heard anything? When I say they are paranoid and reclusive I mean it! They would never travel with an orc. They see us as enemies, even those fools who strut around outside wearing their clothes and speaking their tongue.”

  “It’s worth a shot!”

  The two of them argued back and forth, until they were interrupted from an unexpected source.

  “I will talk to them!” Oben said, practically shouting to make himself heard. “I will talk to them.”

  “Well, go on then.” Semthak said, motioning for him to continue.

  “I am not orc.” Oben began. “I am not enemy. Most people they think I am pale imp. I will talk to them.”

  “… That’s a good idea.” Moktark said.

  “If we dressed him up like one of them, I bet they wouldn’t even realize he didn’t have the horns and such.” Koruk said.

  “Alright.” Semthak relented, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “It’s worth a try. We should wait until dusk though. The imps sleep during the afternoon and move at sundown.”

  “In the meantime, we can get some gear for the journey!” Koruk said, rising to his feet and grinning.

  “We’re broke.” Moktark grumbled.

  “What do you mean we’re broke?”

  “Spent the last of the money paying off that merchant whose stall you trashed. Not that I really blame you he had it coming.” Moktark said, not meeting Koruk’s eyes.

  “We can sell the furs. The loot we got from the farm. I doubt we’ll need furs in the desert.”

  “They’ll fetch a good price here.” Semthak said. “I will meet you back here at sundown. I have some preparations of my own to make.”

  “To an adventure worthy of song!” Moktark said. The three orcs cheered, and they parted ways.