Chapter 80: Saga 80: Whispers of the Wastes
The true Wastelands announced themselves not with a border marker or a change in terrain, but with bones.
Not human bones, mostly—the bleached remains of creatures none of them recognized, half-buried in the cracked earth in numbers that suggested something had been dying out here, regularly and violently, for a very long time.
"That’s a lot of skeletons," Yuki said, crouching beside one particularly large ribcage that arched over his head like the frame of a collapsed building.
"Predator activity, most likely," Harriden said, though his tone carried less certainty than usual. "Though I’ll admit I don’t recognize the species."
Claire knelt beside another set of remains, running careful fingers along a bone surface without quite touching it. "These aren’t natural kills. Look at the fracture patterns. Something did this with intent, not hunger."
"Ritual?" Sylvia asked.
"Possibly. Or territorial marking. Either way, whatever’s responsible wanted this seen."
[Movement detected,] the system said suddenly, cutting through the discussion with clipped urgency. [Multiple presences, approaching from the eastern ridge. Not hostile signatures, but organized. This looks like a deliberate approach, not a chance encounter.]
’How many?’
[Six, currently visible. Possibly more staying out of scanning range.]
"Company," Kael said aloud, drawing the team’s attention toward the ridge the system had flagged. Sure enough, figures were emerging from the rocky outcropping, moving with the unhurried confidence of people entirely familiar with their own territory.
The nomads who approached wore layered wraps of sun-bleached cloth and hide, faces mostly obscured against the wind-driven grit, weapons visible but not raised—a deliberate show of caution rather than open hostility. Their leader, an older woman with sharp, assessing eyes visible above her wrap, stopped a careful distance away, studying the team with open curiosity.
"Outsiders," she said, her accent unfamiliar but her Common perfectly intelligible. "Rare, this deep into the waste. Rarer still, ones who walk in without demon escort or death already stalking them."
"We’re not here to cause trouble," Sylvia said carefully, keeping her hands visible and away from her weapon. "We’re looking for information. About an entity the local tribes apparently know as the Lust System."
The reaction was immediate and unmistakable—several of the nomads shifting uneasily, the leader’s expression sharpening into something wary and considerably less welcoming than before.
"That name isn’t spoken lightly out here," she said. "Not by us, not by anyone with sense."
"We mean no disrespect," Kael said. "We have reason to believe this entity might be connected to threats we’ve already fought elsewhere. Ancient influences, ritual corruption. We’re trying to understand if there’s a connection before it becomes something worse."
The leader studied him for a long moment, something calculating behind her weathered expression. "You speak of it like a scholar chasing theory. Out here, it’s not theory. It’s the reason half our dead lie unburied in the open, and the other half chose not to wander deep enough to become that way."
"Then help us understand," Sylvia said. "Please. We’re not looking to provoke anything. We’re looking to prevent something worse from happening."
A long silence stretched between the two groups, broken only by the dry wind sweeping grit across the exposed bones scattered nearby. Finally, the leader gestured, a small, decisive motion that had the rest of her group relaxing slightly, weapons lowering fully.
"Come. Our camp isn’t far. We’ll speak properly, out of this wind, and I’ll decide how much you’ve earned to know once I’ve heard your full story."
They followed the nomads across another mile of cracked earth to a hidden encampment nestled in a shallow depression, tents woven from the same sun-bleached materials as the tribespeople’s clothing, arranged in a tight defensive circle around a central fire pit.
"I am Sana," the leader said, once they’d settled around the fire, offering rough cups of some bitter, herbal drink that Kael accepted gratefully despite the unfamiliar taste. "Eldest of what remains of the Ashwind tribe. Tell me your story, outsiders, from the beginning. I’ll judge for myself what’s worth sharing in return."
Sylvia took the lead, laying out an abbreviated version of their journey—the Sleeping Ruin, the Hollow Choir, Vane’s ritual, the growing pattern of ancient influence they’d traced across two kingdoms already. Sana listened without interruption, expression unreadable, occasionally exchanging quiet glances with the tribespeople gathered around the fire’s edge.
"So," Sana said finally, once Sylvia had finished. "You believe the Lust System is another piece of this larger pattern. Not merely a local curse, but something with reach beyond our waste."
"We think it’s possible," Kael said. "We don’t know for certain. That’s part of why we’re here."
Sana was quiet for a long moment, staring into the fire with an expression that carried the particular weight of someone deciding how much painful history to share with strangers. "The Lust System is real. Ancient, older than my tribe’s oldest stories, though whether it predates the waste itself or created it, none of us can say with certainty. It rules from somewhere deep in demon-claimed territory, though whether as ruler or prisoner, even the demons themselves seem uncertain."
"You’ve had contact with the demon kingdom directly?" Sylvia asked.
"Limited. Careful. We trade, occasionally, when both sides find it mutually beneficial. But the border shifts, and the Lust System’s territory shifts with it, unpredictable and dangerous to map with any confidence." Sana’s gaze sharpened, fixing on each of them in turn. "If you mean to seek it out directly, understand clearly what you’re risking. Trespass into demon-claimed land, intentional or not, carries consequences considerably harsher than anything you’ll have encountered in your civilized kingdoms."
"We understand the risk," Kael said.
"I doubt that," Sana said, not unkindly. "But I respect the conviction regardless. Rest here tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll share what maps and warnings I can offer, though I won’t pretend they’ll make your path any safer."
Later, as the fire burned low and most of the tribe had drifted off to their tents, Kael found himself sitting a short distance apart with one of the younger Ashwind scouts, a wiry, watchful young man named Torrin who’d said little during the earlier conversation but seemed curious enough about the outsiders to linger.
"You don’t believe your own elder’s warnings?" Kael asked, noticing the way Torrin kept glancing toward the eastern dark, something almost wistful in his expression.
"I believe them," Torrin said. "I just don’t think fear should be the only thing we pass down about it. My grandmother used to say the Lust System wasn’t always feared. That the oldest stories, the ones almost nobody remembers correctly anymore, painted it differently. Not as a curse. As something closer to a guardian, twisted slowly into something else by circumstances nobody living remembers clearly."
"What kind of circumstances?"
Torrin shrugged, though the gesture carried more weight than casualness. "Nobody knows anymore. That’s the trouble with old stories. They erode, same as anything else out here. What’s left is mostly fear, because fear’s easier to hold onto than nuance."
Sylvia, who’d been listening quietly nearby, leaned forward with evident interest. "Do you think that’s what we’ll find? Something twisted rather than something wicked?"
"I couldn’t say for certain," Torrin admitted. "But if you do go looking, I’d ask you to remember what my grandmother taught me, for whatever it’s worth to outsiders. Even the most feared things usually started out as something else entirely."
The conversation lingered with Kael long after Torrin had finally retired to his own tent, the notion settling alongside everything else Sana had shared, another thread in the growing pattern of ancient things misunderstood, feared, and left to fester in isolation rather than properly confronted. He found Sylvia watching him with a knowing expression once the camp had quieted fully.
"You’re thinking about Vane," she said. "And the Sleeping Ruin."
"Hard not to. Seems like there’s a pattern forming, doesn’t it? Things that started out one way, twisted by circumstance and neglect into something the world decided was simpler to fear than understand."
"Maybe," Sylvia said. "Or maybe we’re just looking for patterns because patterns are easier to plan around than genuine uncertainty. Either way, we’ll know more soon enough."
They settled in for what rest the night allowed, the desert cold deepening around the fading fire, tomorrow’s path considerably clearer now than it had been that morning, even if the destination waiting at its end remained as uncertain as ever.
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End of Chapter—