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In the freezing darkness of the desert, two forms walked. One, an older man with sightly disfigured proportions, walked ahead with a walking stick. The look on his face spoke of determination and complete apathy with the threatening surroundings. The second was a much younger, male only just old enough to be called a man. His stride was smoother, his face taken in the surroundings almost eagerly. Had the onlooker been paying close enough attention, they would have marveled at how neither seemed to be nervous walking in the night.

"Don't forget, no one's gonna know who you are. And it best stay that way." Gavric said in a low voice. Menna nodded. She'd spent the entire caravan ride perfected the character of Auden, a b*****d son of the Trisserion family, raised far away from the family home and sent to the Fountain of Mastery the minute word reached his father of his son's bone dengen ability. She'd cultivated a personality of sarcastic indifference to the world. It was better to appear rude and insolent than encourage long conversations that might reveal the truth.

They came to the ruins of an old castle. There was hardly anyone awake, save for a guard at a watch fire. He immediately jumped up and came at them. "State your purpose, stranger." He called loudly, probably to call attention to those sleeping. There was some slight stirring in the poorly made tents nearby, but no one came out to attack...yet. "I am Gavric, the Great." The dengen master's voice was equally loud. The man's eyes widened. "The dengen master?" His voice shook slightly. Menna was a bit shocked. She didn't know her teacher was that well known. "Sir, what are you doing here?" Gavric motioned to Menna. "The boy is my student. He needs to be battle ready. And fast." The man nodded knowingly and invited them to sit around the campfire. They both did so, taking the pieces of bread he gave them.

"You've come at historical times." The man said with the fervent secrecy of someone eager to give information. "You've ever met royalty boy?" Menna managed to suppress the smirk she so wanted to show and shook her head. "We got a prince among us. A fallen heir, they say. Sent here by his tyrant brother. If you're lucky, you might get to meet him." Menna couldn't decide if that made her excited or nervous. She'd like more than anything to know that Oban is alright, but he might figure out who "Auden" really was. "We didn't come to gossip like women." Gavric said roughly, with a pointed look at Menna. She took the message conveyed: Stay focused.

The man, aptly contrite, showed the way to two empty tents on the edge of camp. Gavric didn't thank him, only nodded and went inside his own tent. Menna thought about thanking the man, then thought better of it and went inside herself. But unlike the days she'd spent on the Fountain of Mastery, she didn't fall asleep right away. Instead she stayed away, worrying. She thought about Garanoff and Oban, Dokoro and Gashrious. There was so much at stake and it was beginning to feel bigger than any dengen could handle. But eventually the exhaustion of their journey took over and she fell asleep.

"Yaah!" The Jinshou cheered, raising both arms into the air as the warrior was filled with childlike glee. The other two men who had accompanied him however found themselves burying their faces within their hands, hoping the course texture of their ragged gloves might relieve some portion of disappointment as they lost yet another round’s gamble to their mutual comrade.

“Congratulations you win.” Rorik whispered from behind the unwary warrior. The three men sat momentarily in shock as the soldiers drug daggers across their necks, former cries of cheers replaced by the gargles of inaudible pleas. Stepping away from the brutal scene, as the smaller division of men rushed in closer to the main rear gates, Oban drug his weapon in the sand like the others, wiping clean the iron dagger so as to assist in their future concealment. Halting behind a nearby boulder, which had sank deep enough into the depths of the desert sand as to require the three Silver Knights to kneel, Rorik explained their next move thoroughly as he could to his fellow men.

“I’m not sure what to do next…” The shadow stated, using his cloak to remove the remainder of the samurai’s blood from his blade. The other two looked at him confused, having been certain that the local legend had forged a plan of assault the moment that they had set out for battle.

“What?” Oban asked aloud, though he spoke under his breath so as to not be heard by their intended victims.

“I’m not sure. I am sure however that with three Earth Biter Trolls at the gates, guided by that one Jinshou’s keen senses…you,” He explained, pointing a finger at the fallen heir. “You are not capable of slipping past.” The words slipped off his tongue, as much an insult as it was true, though the young lord took the blow easily as any other, brushing it off as mere wasted air on Rorik’s part.

Nodding his head in confirmation of the fact, the Silver Prince turned to face the gates, peering over the sunken stone as he began to think, his words flowing freely as he did so.

“I can’t get past them without being noticed, but if perhaps you were able to stalk their movements and take them out one after another, then once they’ve gone I can slip in alongside you.” He turned, hoping to find consent in the actions that he had set forth before the trio of soldiers. Instead however, he found himself staring at an open patch of sand, lingering faint signs of footprints leading far off into the distance. “Thank you….thank you for your generosity.”

As he turned once more to face the clearing before the gates, Oban found yet another sight to behold, for a flicker of movement passed between two rocks not twenty feet from the trolls…and the Jinshou noticed it.

“Jin rou no distari!” He roared, instructing the trolls in their tongue to investigate the movement. The sounds of their movements alone were fearsome, their stomping feet shaking the earth and forcing the boulders to sink even further into the sands. Their grunts were similar to the roars of bears, and their clubs appeared the size of trees, the likely source of their arming. Soon with just a few short strides, the trolls were upon the area….and just a moment before they peered over the edge….

“Hey!” Oban shouted, gathering the attention of the four individuals who stood menacingly over him. “Your about as pretty as a knoxing snail!” He bellowed.

The trio of trolls turned then, perplexed by the sudden roaring of the little man, and the Jinshou too found himself shocked at the sudden shouts of an enemy soldier. Apathetic to the peculiar move, the Trolls turned their clubs towards Oban where he stood, his stone ax drawn atop the sunken boulder.

The brutes stomped forth, standing two stories tall each as they pounded the sands about them, charging towards the warrior. As the first of the trolls began to arch his monumental club down upon the warrior however, the fallen heir dived from the stone, his perch split in two as he rolled through the legs of the hulking creature, striking out with all his force at the lower legs of the behemoth.

The dull edge of the hard won weapon however would not dig so deep into the tough flesh of the Earth Biter Trolls, thus he received only minor grunts of annoyance from the miniscule blows. Behind the first of the creatures, the Titan leaped forwards onto the bent leg of the next closest troll, climbing up the hill like torso of the beast towards the head before leaping atop the back of the beast he’d already wounded.

“Come on you dim witted drouks!” The prince shouted towards the creature who still wore the prints of his boots from the brief climb. As the first of the Trolls attempted to remove the soldier from their shoulders, grasping up at their head to clasp their bulbous fingers about him, the beast standing behind the mountainous Earth Biter struck out with it’s massive weapon, landing a clean blow upon the first monster’s skull as Oban leaped from the sprawling beast to land gently within the sands bellow.

As the first of his foes fell however, the fallen heir rose to face a new form of enemy, the orange scarf wearing oppressors themselves. The Jinshou had stepped in, for he knew an intelligent foe was beyond these three beasts, let alone the two which remained standing. With a brutal blow, the heir was forced to wield his ax in defense, taking a hit which crumbled away at the stone with every blow. The beasts about them were far from satisfied however, and the two noble combatants lunged aside, avoiding a deathly blow from a massive club, and weaving about it to continue their intensive brawl.

One blow after another however, Oban realized his weapon would soon shatter, for if he could not take down this man with the ax intact he would have a considerably higher difficulty in dispatching the remaining behemoths. As another strike from the trolls swept across the sands, the samurai leaping above the blow while Oban slid bellow it, the Jinshou took advantage to increase the severity of his next blow. With the full force of the desert warrior’s Drive Technique, the iron edge of his sword struck down as if carried by one of the trolls standing about them, meeting with the prince’s parry as one Titan collided with the force of another.

The blade would bury deep…sinking into flesh….cleaving skin from muscle, from bone….but it would not.

A burst of silver light erupted from the impact, stone shards shattering and scattering about the landscape as the luminous weapon was revealed from within. The vary ax did not however seem to have lost any portion of weight nor size however, but merely acted as a serpent shedding it’s skin, leaving a gleaming festinating design of a silver metal displaying a wondrous weapon to deny the Jinshou his blow.

Winds carried the sands from the two combatants, as the force of the smitten blow burst outwards through the battlefield. The samurai who'd dawned the symbolic orange scarf of his ancestors the Jinshou had simply stood fast where his light boots brushed aside the sands as well, digging into the earth as the warrior stood along side the Titan in shock.

Forcing a sudden mental recovery however, Oban broke through the stillness and dove away from the warrior as a pair of clubs shattered the Jinshou's slender form, slamming into the earth as if the man had never stood there in their path. Grunting with their minor disapproval at the loss of their poor pathetic mentor, the Trolls turned once more to face the Silver Knight who stood before them, angered by the savage conditions of the barren lands, and the brutal training of the Jinshou, a rage which would spread foolishly to all humans who obstructed their paths, the slow witted beasts turned upon the soldier who remained at their feet.

Oban's plans however seemed entirely different than the intentions of the leviathans, for the fallen heir sped past the right flank of the nearest creature, slashing deep into it's tree like shin as he passed. The wound appeared to fester immediately, becoming blackened with infection from the brief moment when he'd stricken. As the Earth Biter knelt to holster his leg, covering the putrid gash with both hands, Oban took to the air, leaping from the side of a near by stone to step foot upon the back of the massive beast.

With the more capable cutting capabilities of the newly reborn weapon, the heir decided it was time to land a death blow upon the giant, striking a high arch down into the kneeling creature's spine. Already the young lord began to become used to the sight he now beheld, as the behemoth rotted away before his eyes, turning to first a corpse and then to a skeleton, his flesh evaporating before the warrior's eye.

Looking up from the sands where the bones now lay, Oban felt empowered. By the oracle's decree, and fate's consent, he'd managed to obtain a weapon which may one day be that of legend. He could already imagine the dark damp tomb which would be prepared for his burial with the item. The ax seemed to speed time for the stricken... the venge shattered, and the trolls rotted, it was as if they had aged significantly with every second they were in contact with the weapon's eager blade. Something was still new of this silvery ax however, for the venge normally dispersed into leaves, not pollen nor seeds as they had in the Grand Woods. Perhaps the ax sped the cycle of renewal...wielding the magic of the phoenixes themselves.

As attention returned to the thoughts of the battle tested lord, Sorrian suddenly realized his great mistake. During his time of pondering over the new weapon, Oban had left his opponent unchecked, and thus had not noticed the sudden motions of heaving and swaying to throw the barbaric weapon upon him. The massive club twirled through the air, churning the sands like a high tempest as it barreled towards him, the prince arching his back as quickly as he could to avoid the fatal blow. His spine was twisted away, snapping into a curve as the knight attempted desperately to avoid the fatal blow. The moment seemed like centuries, and yet when it passed it had only been but a moment, the edge of the weapon caught the prince by the jaw, shattering every bone within to a near pulp. A massive cloud of dust erupted from behind him, the tree sinking into a dune behind the one it had cut in half as the remaining sand showered over the true heir.

Sand sprinkled down from above like a light rain, spraying his broken features like a gentle soft touch, carrying a slight heat from the desert sun where it had sat beneath. Sorrian took no notice of this, his mind was gone....his thoughts were gone, all sensation was gone. All that remained was a limp body, unconscious from the sudden jolt of pain which had flooded his interior just before the gentle sand shrouded over him. Slowly the Earth Biter stomped it's way across the field of battle....closing in on the fallen Titan.

Winds carried across the desert, every cloth not tightly bound caught and flapping about as if trying to frighten the scorpions away. Grains of sand showered over the men, making their track far more difficult as their path carried them across the vast open desert.

Suddenly, the veil of darkness was lifted from the fallen heir, a gasp of air entering his coarse throat as he inhaled through the rough bandages. Lying down upon his back with his arms firmly tucked to his side, the prince felt every motion of the soldiers about him as they carried him off, their steps bouncing his limp body with repetition as his poorly supported frame was carried about in a makeshift hammock. Through the small opening within the wraps, Oban could see the fast waning daylight as the shower of sand specs finally ceased from scratching at his features, though many had already embedded themselves within the thin cloth wrapping to make for an itchy binding.

"Finally awake m'lord?" Murnick asked sarcastically. "Don't worry, we're about there." The scorpion knight informed him, the sounds of chattering men rising. Oban attempted to ask him what had occurred in what he had believed may have been just moments ago, but unfortunately as his jaw muscles tensed, a burst of pain flooded his nerves, enlightening the warrior as to why he could hardly see through the wrappings. Twitching at the sudden intense sensation, Oban couldn't hold himself back from thrashing every now and then, which only sent more discomfort throughout his body.

"Calm down, calm down, you've been out cold for two days after that blow...I'm not even sure how you survived it, but you managed to break your face there pretty good." Murnick chuckled, moving to pat the glinting ax, which appeared more clearly than any other object in the current lighting. "Found ya a little toy too, much better than that stone you were lugging around...you earned it after saving those men, and taking down the only trolls anyone got to all day." The soldier smiled.

Oban soon found he had difficulty breathing, for the wrapping had bound his nose as well, and he seemed to only be capable of taking in small portions of the dry air through a small piece of scroll, rolled up and bluntly shoved into his nostril to keep it open. Aside from that he would have to discover a manner for breathing through his mouth which require the least amount of motion possible....at least until he could become healed.

The sounds of the desert front encampment grew louder still, as Murnick described how the Jinshou fought as valiantly as ever during the encounter, but the trolls they had been training during these past months had fled the moment they had the chance. "Suppose they skipped the lesson on loyalty and duty." He laughed. Only three trolls were actually slain, and two of them were Oban's to claim. Soon enough they joined the remainder of the first battalion, which had gone ahead, turning the corpse of a grimy sand worm over a fire for the day's meal, a victorious feast in these parts, as the Titan was settled down upon a soft mat within the medical tent.

"Yer looking awfully peachy...." Ogrin smiled, leaning over the twice fallen heir.

With a start, the fallen heir awoke once more, his face still firmly wrapped in bandaging, though it appeared as if they had replaced the old itchy cloth with new far more irritating cloth, although it likewise appeared to have fit his features better. As the noble born took in a long breath, he began to realize that he was in far better condition than he had recalled the night before. How long was I out this time?... he had to wonder, lifting his hand to gently rub against the bandages.

"Ah, you're awake then are ya?" Murnick remarked, as Rorik waved to his fallen comrade. "I guess that noblemen here with Gavric's actually got some skill in him after all....we were expecting at least another night." He chuckled, all the while making an attempt to remove bits of sand from his long brown hair.

"The boys have been pitching in iron too...." Rorik began, giving a moment's pause for the two to question the cause. "They're wanting to make you a helmet, since that's the only thing that seems to take any damage." He joked, receiving a bellow of laughter from the two...one which was accompanied by little pain for the Titan. "Well come on then...back to training if you can stand." The shadow motioned to Oban, offering his hand to the fallen heir.



The spear drove forth, it's smooth iron edge thrust with professional accuracy, though the knight would soon realize that he had performed his flawless skill far too slowly, as the Titan of Garnoff caught the tip within the space between the ax blade and it's handle. With a swift and forceful turn, Oban tore the weapon from the knight's hands, turning it over with such haste that he managed to knock the fellow in the head with the blunt end.

"Come on, ya can't even hold onta the dern thing, ya stupid drouk!" Tokos roared, "Yer dead!" He spat, forming a small pocket of moisture which would later suffice to hydrate a prowling scorpion.

"Ya can't even fight the fella when he's got his ead wrapped up like it's bout ta fall apart. The man can ardly see!" The commander fussed, throwing his hands into the air as if to somehow portray the quantity of pathetic that the soldier had displayed. "Next!"

"I can still see you!" Murnick taunted, pointing directly at the fallen heir where he crouched within the sands.

"That's because you've been staring at me the whole time!" Oban roared through the muffling bindings, the shades of his body returning to the colors of his light armor. "You can't expect to not see me if you know exactly what area to examine!" He continued, receiving a small portion of pain within his jaw for his efforts. The young lord decided to twirl his hand about in the air, making a noticeable loop so as to inform Murnick that he must turn around for a moment, allowing for him to readjust his appearance once more.

As the scorpion knight turned to face the alternate horizon, Oban once more cloaked himself with dengen, attempting to bend the light so as to alter color and texture. First he managed to become orange, with hues of yellow and red, matching the sands bellow. With the additions of brown specs across his body, he soon began to appear more like the desert than before, and leaning forth so as to blend more successfully with the landscape, Oban called out to his companion.

"Look now!" The muffled call came, spouting through the sand embedded wrap. Finally Murnick turned to face the desert where his ally lay hidden, searching with such a piercing gaze that he could discern the slightest variation. His keen eyes ran over the lands which were once named for the legend of the Grand Dragon's roar, burning the earth into the fiery dunes it is today, but though the titan had dawned thick cloths, white bandages, and thin plates of armor about his form, despite the hindrances Murnick could not discover his comrade.

"Oban?" He asked aloud. Soon the knight spotted a motion within the sands however, and began to point. "I still see you!" Murnick laughed. "Ya can't be moving if ya want to blend in." He chuckled.

Beneath the itchy cloth however, the prince wore an expression of confusion, tempted to lift his head though he was almost certain that it had been a trick. Soon however, the sand behind Oban burst into the air, a black figure erupting from the depths as if carried by a geyser, a thick leather boot stomping down upon the royal knight's back.

"Found ya Oban." Rorik smiled. "Ya need to work on bending the light around you as well....soften up them rough edges and you'll have the technique down." He laughed, his mood lifted even higher as he witnessed Murnicks pale features. "Ha ha, being under the sand is always better than being on top of em." The rogue bellowed. Lifting his boot from the fallen heirs back.

"Come on, chow's ready, and Tokos has been drinking so he might actually be polite." the shadow smile, Oban and Murnick laughing in turn.