Your browser lacks required capabilities. Please upgrade it or switch to another to continue.

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">After a quarter of an hour, the growth finally dangled from the main trunk, loose enough for him to grab with both hands and tear it away. He lifted the piece to his mouth and drank the water stored within. To his surprise, it tasted not unlike the berries by his grandmother's house, although paler in flavor. It had the berries' sweetness, and it had the guilty dirt of them, plucked off the bush when no one was looking and sheltered in grubby little hands.\n\nAfter his second mouthful of the anazde water, his stomach revolted. It felt like a desiccated leather pouch suddenly flooded with wine. He paused in drinking and rubbed some of the water onto his neck. He could see no better course than to carry the anazde in hand as he walked, sipping from it occasionally. Pouring it into a flask would spill too much.\n\nBefore he left, he considered the anazde patch and the raw white hole he had carved into the plant. It still leaked dew like slow, slobbery tears, but he did not know how edible that substance was, nor any way to heal the anazde of its wounds. He trusted that it had lived a long time in the desert before his arrival, and he left it to the gods to maintain that.\n<<set $water to true>>\n[img[gas][21]]\n</div></div>

<div id="evewrapper"><div id="text">@@.talk;We could burn this all to the ground. To be certain.@@\n\n@@.talk;No. Please -- @@\n\nThe man dropped his arms and stepped forward. The pit so close to emerging -- he swallowed, and it plummeted down to his stomach, down through the churning acid and fear, and sank into the deep black rot.\n\n@@.talk;Please what?@@ The man grimaced a smile. @@.talk;Kill you? Rather than take you back?@@\n\nThe pit dissolved. @@.talk;No.@@\n\nThe man nodded. @@.talk;No. I know you.@@ He waved at the guards and their horses, marshaled quietly at the edge of town. @@.talk;Come. I can beat you when we get back to the caravan.@@\n\nThe man stepped close and gripped him by the back of the neck to press their foreheads together. He realized that it was not only the pit dissolving, but all of his bones. His teeth and jaw dripped onto his tongue like tar, and his skull was wet where it melted against the man.\n\n@@.talk;[[Come]].@@\n\n</div></div>

<div id="evewrapper"><div id="text"><<if visited("42")>>He remembered the coarse-haired woman with eyes like his.\n\n<<else>>He remembered the <<timedreplace 2.3s>>soft<<becomes>>gold<<becomes>>pale<<becomes>>short<<becomes>>red<<becomes>>curly<<becomes>>grey<<becomes>>hawk<<becomes>>black<<becomes>>wild<<becomes>>wheat<<becomes>>silk<<becomes>>lion<<becomes>>brown<<becomes>>night<<becomes>>coarse<<endtimedreplace>>-haired woman with eyes <<timedreplace 3.2s>>that glimmered like the night<<becomes>>wide and pale<<becomes>>the soft color of acorns<<becomes>>that snarled<<becomes>>as green as jade<<becomes>>like a fox<<becomes>>shot through with veins of grey and green<<becomes>>hollow behind the haze of blue<<becomes>>red-veined and red-rimmed<<becomes>>like looking pools<<becomes>>long-lashed and cervine<<becomes>>like his<<endtimedreplace>>. \n\n<<endif>><<if visited ("42")>>She did not tell him he was kind, after he consoled the slaves in their own tongues and brought the fainting girl half a ration more.\n\nShe said, @@.talk;You're a child of Sa.@@\n\nHe had never met another <<linkappend "before.">>\n\nShe said, @@.talk;You are the reason the gods kill men. They must do something to keep our worship. If they can birth something as wondrous as me and you, and I a slave and you -- and you, nothing -- if all their gifts can't lead us out of our darkness, why should we worship them?@@\n\n@@.talk;We are not His only children@@, he answered.\n\nHe had never met another before her, nor after.\n\n[img[gas][42]]<</linkappend>><<else>><<timed 39s>>She did not tell him he was kind, after he consoled the slaves in their own tongues and brought the fainting girl half a ration more.\n\nShe said, @@.talk;You're a child of Sa.@@\n\nHe had never met another <<linkappend "before.">>\n\nShe said, @@.talk;You are the reason the gods kill men. They must do something to keep our worship. If they can birth something as wondrous as me and you, and I a slave and you -- and you, nothing -- if all their gifts can't lead us out of our darkness, why should we worship them?@@\n\n@@.talk;We are not His only children@@, he answered.\n\nHe had never met another before her, nor after.\n\n[img[gas][42]]<</linkappend>><</timed>><<endif>>\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">The traveler eyed the limp pack hanging off his back. @@.talk;Show me@@, they said. \n\nHe slid his pack down and pulled it open. From a pouch sewn into the side of the pack, he retrieved the three rings he had stolen. The rings had belonged to a different owner before the caravan, confiscated from a soon-to-be slave, so he felt no guilt in acquiring them for himself. He offered them out to the traveler.\n\nIn the red light of dusk, the rings' silver bands glinted softly. Far brighter were the ndonya, the three gems set on each ring. The ndonya seemed to him like raindrops frozen in place, smooth translucent spheres that gleamed with the faint memory of the heavens from which they had fallen. The dirt caking his glove could not touch them. They repelled any kind of ugliness, like the clear eyes of children. \n\nThe traveler stepped forward. @@.talk;I have food and water only@@, they lamented.\n\n@@.talk;Gods be known. I am in need of both.@@\n\nHastily the traveler unslung a pack from atop the beast, who snuffed in impatience and tossed its head. The traveler presented some offerings, and they briefly talked and bartered. Then the traveler measured out the provisions in proportions that pleased them both, and he gladly passed over the rings. Weeping stones, he remembered, was their name in another tongue.\n<<set $water to true>>\n[img[gas][26 thank]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">They had made camp by the time he finished, her hair braided tightly over her head like a golden helm. He asked for his pipe. \n\n@@.talk;You want me to give you a firestarter?@@ she laughed.\n\nWhat would he burn -- the water? Yet he compromised. He wanted only the pipe, not the matches. He implored her to light it for him, and eventually she did. It was better than listening to him tremble and whine all night for his dose of dhan.\n\n@@.talk;Thank you. Can I have your name?@@ When she was silent, he said, @@.talk;The bounty gave you mine.@@\n\n@@.talk;Mina.@@\n\n@@.talk;Mina. Thank you.@@\n\nHe drew on his <<linkappend "pipe.">> The smoke withered in the flat air, the sun still high and jealously guarding its place in the sky. It burned against the yellow of her hair, and against the blue of the water, and against the new brown of his arms. The sands seemed to recede, their endless monochrome faltering before the colors of the oasis. She watched him smoke his black pipe.\n\nDhan filled the air slowly around him, a thin and ephemeral haze of grey.\n\n<<timed 22s>>[img[gas-white][52]]<</timed>><</linkappend>>\n</div></div>

Some would not live terribly. He had been told that. He had never seen them after they were sold, so he could not say whether that was true. Perhaps most of them lived bearably. Maids and seamstresses and governesses. Farmhands and cooks and household managers. There were so many tasks a slave could do. Anything a master asked of them.\n\nHe dreamt of the man at the front of the caravan. He did not <<link "dream">><<replace "#second">><<display dreamy>><</replace>><</link>> in images.

<<if $tool1 is "a coil of rope">><<goto "rope down">><<else>><<goto "fall down">><<endif>>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">Fortunately he knew his luck well enough to have packed something for his inevitable wounds. He flushed the wounds first with water and then uncorked the flask of healing ointment. The enchanted liquid inside was clear but sticky, sliding out of the flask in thick globs. As he dabbed it onto a cloth and then onto his scrapes, he was reminded of the aloe plants his father used to keep. He remembered the crack like breaking bone when his father snapped off a piece, and the liquid oozing out so soft and cold.\n\nHe rested some time to allow the ointment to take hold. He had had to roll his tattered sleeves out of the way to apply it, and he wondered how long he could bare them without burning. Although brown as wood, his skin could not compare to the hardened leather of the caravan guards. \n\nHe left it to fate to unroll his sleeves at its own leisure, as he trudged downhill and eventually toward the town. He arrived some hours later, ragged and battered but whole enough. Surely, he thought, the town had received worse than him before. <<set $healed to true>>\n\n[img[gas][healed tavern]]\n</div></div>\n

data:image/png;base64,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

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">\n\n<<timed 1.5s>>@@.title;[[ذنب|1]]@@<<next 1.5s>>\n\n@@.subtitle;by litrouke@@<</timed>>\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">Although his head was humming, the vibrations did not obscure his vision nor rattle his jaw. Briefly he pressed his gloved thumbs to his mouth, seeking any spare wisdom Sa might wish to grant him. He felt none. He dropped his hands and shuffled forward, slow and sincerely pathetic in his fatigue. He did not need to draw attention to himself; the beast noticed him soon, and the traveler halted to watch his approach.\n\nAs he drew closer, he raised his arm in greeting. Slowly the traveler returned the gesture, keeping the other hand on the beast's reins. He had hoped the traveler might speak first so that he would know their language. But the traveler remained silent as he stepped up to them. After catching his breath, he offered blessings of the Father and Mother. The traveler nodded.\n\nHe pulled away the wrapped cloth covering his mouth. He could either ask [[about the town|24 town]] he sought in the east or whether the traveler wished to [[trade supplies|25 trade]].\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He waited some time, still half asleep, to see if the scorpion would quit of its own accord -- or maybe turn its glistening black head upward and tell him to lift the damn sleeve already. Even without remonstration, he started to feel guilty watching the scorpion struggle for naught. He shifted his arm minutely, halting the wary scorpion. He waited a moment and then rocked his arm again. This time, the scorpion scuttled off the seismic rock and eyed his hand, stinger raised, watching for any sign of threat. He kept his arm politely still until the scorpion backed away. \n\nThen he rose to sitting, pulling the tarp's supports out of the ground as he went. He imagined it must have seemed to the scorpion like an entire mountain range gorging out of the earth. It fled from the monstrous scene, leaving him to wonder how long it had delayed here, pleading at the gate of a sanctuary whose god was asleep.\n\nHe restored everything to his pack, had a drink of water, and returned to his feet.\n\n[img[gas][14]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">The rope had weighed heavily on his back these past days, but he had brought it for good reason. He knotted one end around a large rock that jutted from the dirt. The other end, he tossed down the cliff. It fell short by a few body lengths, he estimated. A survivable jump. \n\nHe yanked on the rope a few times to ensure that both knot and rock would hold his weight. Then he lay down on his stomach and edged off the outcropping. The wall of the cliff was hardly smooth: stones, and crevices where stones had once nestled, afforded him easy footholds. Halfway down, he realized that if his pursuers reached this same cliff, the dangling rope would provide a direct path to him. An unfortunate realization, and one he could do nothing about now. \n\nHe climbed down and dropped the last gap to the ground. His legs whined at the impact, and he gave them and the rest of his body a few minutes to recoup before he left the shadow of the cliff. He arrived at the town unharmed, although ragged and stinking of sweat and bile. Surely, he thought, the town must have received worse than him before. <<set $healed to true>>\n\n[img[gas][healed tavern]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He crouched and unslung his pack to withdraw the pair of throwing zdi. The zdi were small enough to rest in his palm and wickedly tipped, as keen as stone arrowheads. He watched the bird disappear into the bramble and then hop back out, pecking at some unseen grub in the sand. He waited for it to hesitate, head cocked to track its own prey -- then he flicked the zdi across the sand. \n\nThe zdi struck the bird's neck, just below the head that briefly shrieked and convulsed. The bird tottered a step before the bramble snared it; then it collapsed to the sand in silence.\n\nHe grabbed his pack and trotted over to claim his meal. After cooking and gnawing the meat off its little bones, he left a pile of inedibles where the bird had originally fallen. He could not decide whether he meant it as a kindness, an effortless meal for some other desert creature, or if he meant it as an explanation to any feathered kin that might come searching.\n\n[img[gas][11]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">Never a skilled hunter, he had not bothered to grab the throwing zdi when he left the caravan. But he scrounged in the sand and came up with a weighty, well-balanced rock that fit in his palm. He watched as the bird disappeared into the bramble and then hopped back out, pecking at some unseen grub in the sand. He waited for it to hesitate, head cocked to track its own prey -- then he raised his arm. \n\nWithout meaning to, he cocked his arm sideways, as if he meant to skip the rock across the surface of the sand. It was too late to hesitate on the throw -- but he did anyway, and the rock skidded into the sand well short of the bird, releasing a plume of dust and sending the bird sprinting. \n\nBy the time he trotted over to retrieve the rock, the bird had vanished from sight. He elected to leave the rock buried where it had fallen, and he walked on.\n\n[img[gas][11]]\n</div></div>

The night was their hair, and the sky and the sand and the world; the resplendent darkness, the heavy black silk of the north, sparkled with starry pearl pins and silver combs. Ahead of him the amber glow of eastern girls; beneath his feet the frail wheat and straw of the south. \n\nThe air curled, shaking loose black strands from the sky. He plucked at them as they fell, gathering into his hands as many as he could keep. Toward him the wind spun threads of mahogany and crisp honey, and his footsteps caused clouds of fine gold to flutter and drift around his spilling hands. \n\nHe could not gather enough. The strands filled the <<link "air.">><<replace "#secondhalf">>The emptiness became soft, and then pressing, and then crushing with the weight of them. Every breath drew spiderwebbed gags of hair into his mouth. His gums bled when he yanked at the strands. They pulled loose his teeth, and he choked. \n\nHis teeth were red and white in the dark, brighter than the [[stars|17]].<</replace>><</link>>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He had not been able to steal a full tent from the caravan -- nor had he the strength to carry one - but he had folded a small tarp into his pack. With his pocket knife, he pricked two holes into either end of the tarp. He pinned one end into the sand with the same knife; for the other end, he used a spoon. Then he lay on his back and squirmed beneath the low tarp. The utensils kept it taut, providing at least his face and chest with some semblance of shade. He tucked his pack under his head and soon fell into welcome slumber.\n\nHe woke to an itchy feeling. He had to blink his eyes several times, eyelids scraping across the swollen dryness of them, before his vision cohered. The source of the itch was a determined scorpion. It had already mounted his hand; now it endeavored to lift his sleeve and find some entrance into what surely must be a dark, safe refuge from the sun.\n<<set $siesta to true>>\n[img[gas][12.5]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He waited until the woman noticed his open eyes. Her hand paused, the cloth dripping cool water onto his wrist. He thanked her before she could refuse, and he apologized after she refused his gratitude anyway. They were indeed some of her grandchildren, he learned. She did not speak of them with much fondness. \n\n<<if $tool3 is "a flask of healing ointment">>@@.talk;In my bag,@@ he said in the silence. @@.talk;I have something to treat wounds.@@<<set $healed to true>>\n\nShe brought it to him slowly, joints creaking like the wheels of a caravan wagon. He showed her the flask of healing ointment. The liquid inside was clear but sticky, sliding out in thick globs when she poured it onto the cloth. She pressed it to his head, and he felt the enchantment bloom like a yellow wildflower around the dull brown of his wound.\n\nOnce he had caught his breath, <<else>><<set $healed to false>>In the silence that followed, <<endif>>he asked after the tavern in the town.\n\nShe smiled crookedly. @@.talk;Am I that ugly to you?@@\n\n@@.talk;The opposite. I don't think your husband would trust a strange man to stay the night in your house.@@\n\nShe laughed. @@.talk;My husband is dead.@@ \n\nBut she laughed again and helped him to his feet. The tavern, she explained to him, stood not far away. He thanked her again and headed out for it, pack in hand.\n\n[img[gas][34]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He sat against the base of the dune and set his pack in his lap. He could have lain down, but he felt irrationally that this was a safer position -- he could tell himself that he was only resting, not sleeping. He wiped his face, drank a mouthful of water, and then let his head nod down into slumber.\n\nRed woke him, bloody dawnlight pressing against his eyelids. He ate, drank again, and rose to his feet. His clothes stood stiff with dried sweat. They cracked and peeled away from him as he took his first steps into the day. \n\nThe sands in the distance shimmered like rain. Bronze and gold dripped toward each other, converging at the glimmer of the horizon. The only sanity for many hours was the painted sky. The blue shone like it too was carved of metal -- a gleaming marble ceiling with white veins of occasional clouds. It wanted very much to be beautiful.\n\nThe next relief from monotony came in the dusty form of a ground bird. It pattered around the brambles of some wiry desert growth. The bird and the plant were the same dull ragged brown, but only one of them edible, if he could catch it. He knew the birds ran like devils, as fast as their winged cousins flew. They were usually hunted from afar, shot by arrow or throwing dagger.\n\n<<if $tool2 is "a pair of throwing daggers">>He could [[throw|7 throw dagger]] one of his hunting daggers at the bird<<else>>He could [[throw a rock|8 throw rock]] at the bird<<endif>>, or he could try to [[sneak up|9 sneak nopray]] on it.\n</div></div>

/% Place your story's setup code in this passage.\nAny macros in this passage will be run before the Start passage (or any passage you wish to Test Play) is run. %/

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He decided to pray that night, his eyes closed, thumbs pressed to his mouth, body stiff from exertion and chill alike. In this twilight between meditation and slumber, he felt corpselike. He knew he could not move his limbs if he attempted it, and he felt the sand creep over his boots in a slow, methodical burial. \n\nHe quit his body and rose from the empty vessel, up into the night. The desert, unlike him, was no longer empty: it trembled with an energy like the thousand-fold beating of moth wings, and all around his spirit hovered other souls -- few men, many beasts. His absence of hand washed through the absence of a lizard's body, as he waded his way through the creatures and toward another man. \n\nThe other soul turned to him, but it lacked eyes to see. He realized he did as well; his eyes and all the other eyes had been transposed with the stars, embedded unblinking in the tapestry of night. All he witnessed now, the thousands of wavering souls, he witnessed from above, not as <<linkappend "himself.">>\n\nHe jolted awake clawing at his own face.<<timed 3.5s>><<goto "28">><</timed>><</linkappend>>\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">But to rest <<if $pray is not true>>again <<endif>>would be suicidal, he thought, in the open like this. He did not know how fast the guards from the caravan were traveling, nor how many, nor in which direction. \n\n<<if $tool3 is "a pot of cooling salve">>He thanked the gods he had possessed the presence of mind to nick a pot of gahli from the caravan. He stripped off his robes and the shirt beneath them and wiped the cooling salve down his chest and sides. He coated his neck and wrists in a thicker layer. Immediately he felt the enchantment within the gahli touch his blood, and he shivered hard. The skin on his chest prickled and flinched, not trusting the sudden numbness that seeped through it.\n\nHe redressed, trading out the nakedness of his torso for that of his lower half. He covered himself with gahli, smearing an extra layer around his ankles. He left his gloves and boots off for a few minutes longer, waiting for the chill to take hold of his veins. Once he was satisfied that he would not rub it away, he dressed completely and resumed his journey. He felt like a snail oozing out from its shell, coated as he was in the slimy veil of the salve. \n\nYet the gahli served its purpose well: he walked through the rest of the day as if it were night.<<else>>He wished to the gods he had stolen that pot of gahli; he dearly needed its cooling enchantment. But he had none, so he trudged onward through the hazy sand. The shimmering no longer remained in the distance. Walls of glazed heat seemed to rise before him, so close that he shied away from them like a nervous horse skirting torchlight. \n\nHe stumbled once from this, landing on his knees in the sand. His hands scrabbled strangely, instinctively, at the sand, as if he meant to dig himself out from a hole. Even after he caught himself and halted his hands, the terror of the idea lingered in his chest, a suffocated feeling that told him he would never be able to rise. \n\nFor a few minutes, he gave in to this fate. He sat in the sand and drank water that tasted as hot as the air. Eventually he returned to his feet -- several times, it felt like. Thinking back on this later, he could not decide whether he had stood and fallen and stood and fallen many times over, or if he had collapsed into sleep after that first fall and dreamt all the rest. Either way, he did not regain full control of himself until after the sun neared the horizon.<<endif>>\n\n[img[gas][14]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text"><<if $siesta is true>>He rested again in the afternoon, drawing the tarp across his face.<<else>>Today his body demanded some respite, so he set up camp at the hottest hour of the day. He had not been able to steal a full tent from the caravan -- nor had he the strength to carry one - but he had folded a small tarp into his pack. With his pocket knife, he pricked two holes into either end of the tarp. He pinned one end into the sand with the same knife; for the other end, he used a spoon. Then he lay on his back and squirmed beneath the low tarp. The utensils kept it taut, providing at least his face and chest with some semblance of shade. He tucked his pack under his head and soon fell into welcome slumber.<<endif>>\n\nAfter dreaming for a few hours, the images sun-tinted even through closed eyes, he soldiered on through the evening. The light still held in the west, searing at his back, when he sighted something dark among the sands. His head had begun humming shortly before then -- a light buzzing, only a warning.\n\nBefore investigating the shape, he granted himself a mouthful of water, as if that might cure the frayed vision of his dry eyes. Then he worked his way up a dune, although the hills here were mild at their highest. Had the region hosted true dunes, the stranger would have been hidden from him. For it was a stranger he had seen, a single traveler walking next to a pack-beast. The beast held its head aloft and would occasionally scan the landscape, seeming more bored than weary. The traveler too walked with a steady stride and a straight back. They headed north, crossing his eastern path.\n\nHe could [[approach|22 approach]] the stranger or [[remain hidden|23 hidden]].\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text"><<timed 2s>>\n\n\n\n\n\n@@.talk;And as your gifts lead me out of the darkness,@@ <<next 2.2s>>@@.talk;I worship you,@@\n<<next 2s>>@@.talk;I worship you,@@ <<next 2s>>@@.talk;O Wisdom of the Gods.@@\n<<next 2.2s>>@@.talk;And as your gifts lead me out of the darkness,@@ <<next 2.2s>>@@.talk;I worship you,@@\n<<next 2s>>@@.talk;I worship you,@@ <<next 2s>>@@.talk;O@@\n<</timed>><<timed 19.5s>><<goto "49">><</timed>>\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text"><<timed 2s>>He was dying, daydreaming, beneath his tarp when they found him. Sa let him sleep. He must have looked shameless to the bounty hunters, an unapologetic smudge on the clarity of the sand and open blue sky. He had given up hiding, and sometimes living. When his body wanted rest, he lay down wherever he stood; when it wanted water, he could do nothing but dream.\n\nThey pulled the tarp away. The sudden sun kicked dust and light into his eyes, intersected by the shadows looming over him. Their leader crouched down and tugged away his headwrap. She compared his face to a tattered drawing in her hand. She asked if it was him who was wanted for arson.\n\n@@.talk;Arson?@@\n\n@@.talk;For starting a fire@@, she translated.\n\nShe thought he was an idiot, he realized. She thought he was ignorant of the meaning of that word, of any word.\n\n@@.talk;Yes@@, he said fervently. @@.talk;Yes, I lit the fire. Will you kill me?@@\n\nShe frowned and tucked the bounty away. She would not kill him, she said. They had been tasked with bringing him back to the capitol for judgment. He tried not to smile. They had water in the capitol, and far less sand. His lips would bleed if he smiled.\n\n[img[gas][50]]\n<</timed>>\n</div></div>

<div id="evewrapper"><div id="text">If he left the tavern now, he would be a lone rabbit sprinting through empty streets. Prey travels in packs for a reason. He staggered back to his room, eyes darting in the dimness. He grabbed his box of matches for light, as if light would illuminate his confused mind -- but he did not strike a match. He stared at the box, recalling downstairs the splintering chairs and long wooden bar. The floor must be filthy with alcohol. He grabbed his pack and ran down the hall. \n\nSlamming on the owner's door, he shouted, @@.talk;Fire! There's fire!@@\n\nHe rushed downstairs and fumbled to light a match. He touched the match carefully to a table, the wood glazed over with the spill of old drinks. Flames perked up like a row of hunting dogs, ears turned to their master. He set another fire at the bar; overhead, the owner was shouting and stomping down the hall. <<if $girl is true>>He remembered the girl. The flames would blaze in the brown of her eyes, blotting out the green.<</if>>\n\nHe grabbed a pitcher of drink from the bar and ran outside. He sloshed the contents of the pitcher onto the strips of animal hide that formed the tavern door. With the help of a match, flames rippled up the hide and tangled viciously among themselves. He ran to a neighboring house and banged on the door, shouting for help.\n\n[img[gas][47]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He possessed nothing that could clean wounds. Peeling off the ragged remains of his sleeves seemed ill-advised: baring his arms would not clean them, only expose more of them to the sun. He had no recourse but to reach the town as soon as possible and beg their assistance.\n\nSo he staggered into town some hours later, a shock of white painted down the back of him like a brand and his arms smeared with powder and blood. <<set $healed to false>>\n\n[img[gas][unhealed tavern]]\n</div></div>\n

<div id="evewrapper"><div id="text">His eye erupted in pain. He staggered back from the sudden blow, clutching his face. He was struck again in the stomach, and someone seized his arm. They dragged him, gasping and kicking up sand, behind the house, and shoved him against the wall. He was left cowering alone into the clay. Blood dripped from his eye and into his hands. \n\nThe guards stood in silence; only the man in front of him spoke. @@.talk;That was a fucking stupid thing you did. Wasn't it?@@\n\n@@.talk;Please -- @@\n\n@@.talk;Do you know someone in this town?@@ The man stayed at a distance, arms crossed comfortably and voice level.\n\nThe pit choked in his throat. He could feel the pressure of it against the back of his tongue.\n\n@@.talk;Do you? Were they going to hide you?@@\n\nGagging around it, he shook his head.\n\n[img[gas][45]]\n</div></div>

<div id="evewrapper"><div id="text">The dhan flickered urgently in the dark. He lifted the pipe from his leg, where it had rested too long, and took a drag. <<if visited("fall down")>>The aching in his head had returned. <<elseif visited("nothingwash") or visited("waterwash")>>His arms itched with young pink scabs. <<endif>>Smoke swirled in his mouth. He held it for a few moments before releasing it into the air. His teeth felt dry. He rubbed his knuckles along his jaw, where two days of untrimmed beard was matted with sweat and sand. Every time he lifted his pipe, he looked to the wall ahead of him, as if a window might appear.\n\nHis teeth began to peel, like dry lips. The smoke in his mouth was formed of their pale flakes of bone. He spat it out coughing. His teeth ached. He needed a window. He stumbled into the hall, to the end of it, fumbling at the latch of the window there. He threw it open, and black night rolled in, and with it the smell of horses and men. His teeth rattled in his skull. He knew they were here: the guards, the man, the sickness in his bones, the pit in his splintering teeth.\n\nHe rushed back to his room.\n\nFrom what direction had they come? Could he outrun their horses? <<cyclinglink "$choose""He needed to leave immediately with Sa's blessing" "He needed to cause a diversion to cover his escape">>.\n\n[img[gas][43]]\n</div></div>

Config.debug = false;\n\n\n\n\n/*! <<replacelink>> macro set for SugarCube 2.x */\n!function(){"use strict";function showVer(n,notrans){n&&(n.innerHTML="",new Wikifier(n,n.tweecode),n.setAttribute("data-enabled","true"),n.style.display="inline",n.classList.remove("revision-span-out"),notrans||(n.classList.add("revision-span-in"),n.timeout&&clearTimeout(n.timeout),n.timeout=setTimeout(function(){n.classList.remove("revision-span-in"),n=null},20)))}function hideVer(n,notrans){n&&(n.setAttribute("data-enabled","false"),n.classList.remove("revision-span-in"),n.timeout&&clearTimeout(n.timeout),notrans?(n.style.display="none",n.innerHTML="",n=null):(n.classList.add("revision-span-out"),n.timeout=setTimeout(function(){"false"===n.getAttribute("data-enabled")&&(n.classList.remove("revision-span-out"),n.style.display="none",n.innerHTML=""),n=null},1e3)))}function tagcontents(b,starttags,desttags,endtags,k){function tagfound(i,e,endtag){for(var j=0;j<e.length;j++)if(a.indexOf("<<"+e[j]+(endtag?">>":""),i)===i)return e[j]}for(var tg,l=0,c="",a=b.source.slice(k),i=0;i<a.length;i++){if(tg=tagfound(i,starttags))l++;else{if((tg=tagfound(i,desttags,!0))&&0===l)return b.nextMatch=k+i+tg.length+4,[c,tg];if((tg=tagfound(i,endtags,!0))&&(l--,0>l))return null}c+=a.charAt(i)}return null}function revisionSpanHandler(g,e,f,b){function mkspan(vtype){return h=insertElement(m,"span",null,"revision-span "+vtype),h.setAttribute("data-enabled",!1),h.style.display="none",h.tweecode="",h}var becomes,c,cn,m,h,vsn,k=b.source.indexOf(">>",b.matchStart)+2,vsns=[],vtype=e,flen=f.length;if(this.shorthand&&flen)for(;f.length>0;)vsns.push([f.shift(),"insert"===this.flavour?"gains":"becomes"]);else("insert"===this.flavour||"continue"===this.flavour&&"time"===this.trigger)&&vsns.push(["","becomes"]);if("continue"===this.flavour&&flen)b.nextMatch=k+b.source.slice(k).length,vsns.push([b.source.slice(k),vtype]);else{if(becomes=["becomes","gains"],c=tagcontents(b,begintags,becomes.concat(endtags),endtags,k),c&&-1===endtags.indexOf(c[1])){for(;c;)vsns.push(c),c=tagcontents(b,begintags,becomes,endtags,b.nextMatch);c=tagcontents(b,begintags,["/"+e,"end"+e],endtags,b.nextMatch)}if(!c)return void throwError(g,"<<"+e+">>: cannot find a matching close tag");vsns.push(c),"continue"===this.flavour&&(k=b.nextMatch,b.nextMatch=k+b.source.slice(k).length,vsns.push([b.source.slice(k),""]))}for("remove"===this.flavour&&vsns.push(["","becomes"]),cn=0,m=insertElement(g,"span",null,e),m.setAttribute("data-flavour",this.flavour),h=mkspan("initial"),vsn=vsns.shift(),h.tweecode=vsn[0],showVer(h,!0);vsns.length>0;)vsn&&(vtype=vsn[1]),vsn=vsns.shift(),h=mkspan(vtype),h.tweecode=vsn[0];"function"==typeof this.setup&&this.setup(m,g,e,f)}function revisionSetup(m,g,e,f){m.className+=" "+f[0].replace(" ","_")}function keySetup(m,g,e,f){f[0];m.setEventListener("keydown",function l(e){var done=!revise("revise",m);done&&m.removeEventListener("keydown",l)})}function timeSetup(m,g,e,f){function cssTimeUnit(s){if("string"==typeof s){if("ms"===s.slice(-2).toLowerCase())return Number(s.slice(0,-2))||0;if("s"===s.slice(-1).toLowerCase())return 1e3*Number(s.slice(0,-1))||0}return throwError(g,"<<"+e+'>>: "'+s+'" is not a valid CSS time unit'),0}var tm=cssTimeUnit(f[0]),s=passage();setTimeout(function timefn(){if(passage()===s){var done=!revise("revise",m);done||setTimeout(timefn,tm)}},tm)}function hoverSetup(m){var fn,noMouseEnter=null!==document.head.onmouseenter,m1=m.children[0],m2=m.children[1],gains=m2.className.indexOf("gains")>-1;m1&&m2&&(m1.onmouseenter=function(e){for(var efp=document.elementFromPoint(e.clientX,e.clientY);efp&&efp!==this;)efp=efp.parentNode;efp&&"false"!==this.getAttribute("data-enabled")&&revise("revise",this.parentNode)},m2.onmouseleave=function(e){for(var efp=document.elementFromPoint(e.clientX,e.clientY);efp&&efp!==this;)efp=efp.parentNode;efp||"false"!==this.getAttribute("data-enabled")&&revise("revert",this.parentNode)},gains&&(m1.onmouseleave=m2.onmouseleave),noMouseEnter&&(fn=function(n){return function(e){event.relatedTarget&&(event.relatedTarget===this||this.compareDocumentPosition(event.relatedTarget)&Node.DOCUMENT_POSITION_CONTAINED_BY)||this[n]()}},m1.onmouseover=fn("onmouseenter"),m2.onmouseout=fn("onmouseleave"),gains&&(m1.onmouseout=m2.onmouseout)),m=null)}function mouseSetup(m){var evt=null===document.head.onmouseenter?"onmouseenter":"onmouseover";m[evt]=function(){var done=!revise("revise",this);done&&(this[evt]=null)},m=null}function linkSetup(m,g,e,f){var l=document.createElement("a"),p=m.parentNode;l.className="link-internal replaceLink",p.insertBefore(l,m),l.insertBefore(m,null),jQuery(l).ariaClick(function(){var done=!1;m&&m.parentNode===this&&(done=!revise("revise",m),scrollWindowTo(m)),done&&(this.parentNode.insertBefore(m,this),this.parentNode.removeChild(this))}),l=null}function visitedSetup(m,g,e,f){var done,sav=State.variables,os="once seen",d=m.firstChild&&("insert"===this.flavour?m.firstChild.nextSibling:m.firstChild).tweecode;if(sav[os]=sav[os]||{},d&&!sav[os].hasOwnProperty(d))sav[os][d]=1;else{for(var i=sav[os][d];i>0&&!done;i--)done=!revise("revise",m,!0);sav[os].hasOwnProperty(d)&&(sav[os][d]+=1)}}function insideDepartingSpan(elem){for(var r=elem.parentNode;!r.classList.contains("passage");){if(r.classList.contains("revision-span-out"))return!0;r=r.parentNode}}function reviseAll(rt,rname){for(var rall=document.querySelectorAll(".passage [data-flavour]."+rname),ret=!1,i=0;i<rall.length;i++)insideDepartingSpan(rall[i])||(ret=revise(rt,rall[i])||ret);return ret}function revise(rt,r,notrans){function doToGainerSpans(n,fn){for(var k=n-1;k>=0&&rc[k+1].classList.contains("gains");k--)fn(rc[k],notrans)}for(var ind2,curr,next,ind=-1,rev="revert"===rt,rnd=rt.indexOf("random")>-1,fl=r.getAttribute("data-flavour"),rc=r.childNodes,cyc="cycle"===fl,rcl=rc.length-1,k=0;rcl>=k;k++)"true"===rc[k].getAttribute("data-enabled")&&(ind=k);rev&&(ind-=1),curr=ind>=0?rc[ind]:cyc?rc[rcl]:null,ind2=ind,rnd&&(ind2=(ind+Math.floor(Math.random()*rcl))%rcl),next=rcl>ind2?rc[ind2+1]:cyc?rc[0]:null;var docurr=rev?showVer:hideVer,donext=rev?hideVer:showVer,currfn=function(){next&&next.classList.contains("gains")&&!rnd||(docurr(curr,notrans),doToGainerSpans(ind,docurr,notrans))},nextfn=function(){donext(next,notrans),rnd&&doToGainerSpans(ind2+1,donext,notrans)};return rev?(nextfn(),currfn()):(currfn(),nextfn()),cyc?!0:rev?ind>0:rcl-1>ind2}if("undefined"==typeof version||"undefined"==typeof version.title||"SugarCube"!==version.title||"undefined"==typeof version.major||version.major<2)throw new Error("<<replacelink>> macro set requires SugarCube 2.0.0 or greater, aborting load");version.extensions.replacelinkMacroSet={major:1,minor:1,revision:7};var begintags=[],endtags=[];[{name:"insertlink",flavour:"insert",trigger:"link",setup:linkSetup},{name:"timedinsert",flavour:"insert",trigger:"time",setup:timeSetup},{name:"insertion",flavour:"insert",trigger:"revisemacro",setup:revisionSetup},{name:"later",flavour:"insert",trigger:"visited",setup:visitedSetup},{name:"keyinsert",flavour:"insert",trigger:"key",setup:keySetup},{name:"replacelink",flavour:"replace",trigger:"link",setup:linkSetup},{name:"timedreplace",flavour:"replace",trigger:"time",setup:timeSetup},{name:"mousereplace",flavour:"replace",trigger:"mouse",setup:mouseSetup},{name:"hoverreplace",flavour:"replace",trigger:"hover",setup:hoverSetup},{name:"revision",flavour:"replace",trigger:"revisemacro",setup:revisionSetup},{name:"keyreplace",flavour:"replace",trigger:"key",setup:keySetup},{name:"timedremove",flavour:"remove",trigger:"time",setup:timeSetup},{name:"mouseremove",flavour:"remove",trigger:"mouse",setup:mouseSetup},{name:"hoverremove",flavour:"remove",trigger:"hover",setup:hoverSetup},{name:"removal",flavour:"remove",trigger:"revisemacro",setup:revisionSetup},{name:"once",flavour:"remove",trigger:"visited",setup:visitedSetup},{name:"keyremove",flavour:"remove",trigger:"key",setup:keySetup},{name:"continuelink",flavour:"continue",trigger:"link",setup:linkSetup},{name:"timedcontinue",flavour:"continue",trigger:"time",setup:timeSetup},{name:"mousecontinue",flavour:"continue",trigger:"mouse",setup:mouseSetup},{name:"keycontinue",flavour:"continue",trigger:"key",setup:keySetup},{name:"cycle",flavour:"cycle",trigger:"revisemacro",setup:revisionSetup},{name:"mousecycle",flavour:"cycle",trigger:"mouse",setup:mouseSetup},{name:"timedcycle",flavour:"cycle",trigger:"time",setup:timeSetup},{name:"keycycle",flavour:"replace",trigger:"key",setup:keySetup}].forEach(function(e){e.handler=revisionSpanHandler,e.shorthand=["link","mouse","hover"].indexOf(e.trigger)>-1,macros[e.name]=e,Macro.tags.register(e.name),begintags.push(e.name),endtags.push("/"+e.name,"end"+e.name)}),macros.revertlink=macros.reviselink=macros.randomiselink=macros.randomizelink={handler:function(a,b,c){function disableLink(l){l.style.display="none"}function enableLink(l){l.style.display="inline"}function updateLink(l){if(l.className.indexOf("random")>-1)return void enableLink(l);for(var cannext,canprev,r,fl,rall=document.querySelectorAll(".passage [data-flavour]."+rname),i=0;i<rall.length;i++)r=rall[i],fl=r.getAttribute("data-flavour"),insideDepartingSpan(r)||("cycle"===fl?cannext=canprev=!0:("false"===r.firstChild.getAttribute("data-enabled")&&(canprev=!0),"false"===r.lastChild.getAttribute("data-enabled")&&(cannext=!0)));var can=l.classList.contains("revert")?canprev:cannext;(can?enableLink:disableLink)(l)}function toggleText(w){w.classList.toggle(rl+"Enabled"),w.classList.toggle(rl+"Disabled"),w.style.display="none"===w.style.display?"inline":"none"}if(c.length<2)return void throwError(a,"<<"+b+">>: insufficient arguments (requires at least 2)");var l,rname,rl="reviseLink",v="",end=!1,out=!1;switch(rname=c.shift().replace(" ","_"),l=insertElement(a,"a"),l.className="link-internal "+rl+" "+rl+"_"+rname+" "+b,c.length>1&&"$"===c[0][0]&&(v=c[0].slice(1),c.shift()),c[c.length-1]){case"end":end=!0,c.pop();break;case"out":out=!0,c.pop()}for(var h=State.variables,i=0;i<c.length;i++){var on=i===Math.max(c.indexOf(h[v]),0),d=insertElement(null,"span",null,rl+(on?"En":"Dis")+"abled");on?(h[v]=c[i],l.setAttribute("data-cycle",i)):d.style.display="none",insertText(d,c[i]),l.appendChild(d)}jQuery(l).ariaClick(function(){reviseAll(b,rname);var lall,t=this.childNodes,u=this.getAttribute("data-cycle")-0,m=t.length;if((end||out)&&u>=m-(end?2:1)){if(!end)return void this.parentNode.removeChild(this);var n=this.removeChild(t[u+1]||t[u]);n.className=rl+"End",n.style.display="inline",this.parentNode.replaceChild(n,this)}else toggleText(t[u]),u=(u+1)%m,v&&(h[v]=c[u]),toggleText(t[u]),this.setAttribute("data-cycle",u);lall=document.getElementsByClassName(rl+"_"+rname);for(var i=0;i<lall.length;i++)updateLink(lall[i])}),disableLink(l),setTimeout(function(l){return function(){updateLink(l)}}(l),1),l=null}},macros.mouserevise=macros.hoverrevise={handler:function(a,b,c,d){var endtags=["/"+b,"end"+b],evt=null===window.onmouseenter?"onmouseenter":"onmouseover",t=tagcontents(d,[b],endtags,endtags,d.source.indexOf(">>",d.matchStart)+2);if(t){var rname=c[0].replace(" ","_"),h=insertElement(a,"span",null,"hoverrevise hoverrevise_"+rname),f=function(){var done=!reviseAll("revise",rname);"hoverrevise"!=b&&done&&(this[evt]=null)};new Wikifier(h,t[0]),"hoverrevise"===b?(h.onmouseover=f,h.onmouseout=function(){reviseAll("revert",rname)}):h[evt]=f,h=null}}},Macro.tags.register("mouserevise"),Macro.tags.register("hoverrevise"),macros.instantrevise={handler:function(a,b,c,d){reviseAll("revise",c[0].replace(" ","_"))}}}();\n\n\n/*! <<cyclinglink>> macro for SugarCube 2.x */\n!function(){"use strict";if("undefined"==typeof version||"undefined"==typeof version.title||"SugarCube"!==version.title||"undefined"==typeof version.major||version.major<2)throw new Error("<<cyclinglink>> macro requires SugarCube 2.0 or greater, aborting load");version.extensions.cyclinglinkMacro={major:3,minor:3,revision:2},macros.cyclinglink={handler:function(a,b,c){function toggleText(w){w.classList.remove("cyclingLinkInit"),w.classList.toggle(rl+"Enabled"),w.classList.toggle(rl+"Disabled"),w.style.display="none"===w.style.display?"inline":"none"}var rl="cyclingLink";switch(c[c.length-1]){case"end":var end=!0;c.pop();break;case"out":var out=!0;c.pop()}var v=null;c.length&&"$"===c[0][0]&&(v=c[0].slice(1),c.shift());var h=State.variables;if(!out||!v||""!==h[v]){var l=insertElement(a,"a");l.className="link-internal cyclingLink",l.setAttribute("data-cycle",0);for(var i=0;i<c.length;i++){var on=i===(v?Math.max(c.indexOf(h[v]),0):0),d=insertElement(null,"span",null,"cyclingLinkInit cyclingLink"+(on?"En":"Dis")+"abled");on?(v&&(h[v]=c[i]),l.setAttribute("data-cycle",i)):d.style.display="none",insertText(d,c[i]),on&&end&&i===c.length-1?l.parentNode.replaceChild(d,l):l.appendChild(d)}jQuery(l).ariaClick(function(){var t=this.childNodes,u=this.getAttribute("data-cycle")-0,m=t.length;if(toggleText(t[u]),u+=1,out&&u===m?v&&(h[v]=""):(u%=m,v&&(h[v]=c[u])),(end||out)&&u===m-(end?1:0)){if(!end)return void this.parentNode.removeChild(this);var n=this.removeChild(t[u]);return n.className=rl+"End",n.style.display="inline",void this.parentNode.replaceChild(n,this)}toggleText(t[u]),this.setAttribute("data-cycle",u)})}}}}();\n

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He wiped his face with trembling hands and smeared the bit of dampness across the back of his neck. He had to keep moving -- but with purpose, not panic. He continued his eastern path, heading into the nascent sun. Sand dogged his twitching legs; his muscles felt as bile-filled as his mouth. He wished he had turned east earlier, when he had run through the strip of rocks and dirt. He could not risk backtracking now.\n\nPerhaps, he thought wildly, it was not the caravan whom he had heard. Perhaps it was the traveler, leading more beasts. He pressed his fingers to his splitting jaw, and he knew that was not the truth. Slowly his breath restored itself, and his muscles unfolded. His pace dwindled to a trudge in the rising heat. \n\nThe skin covering his teeth still shivered with Sa's warning. Sometime after the sun alighted fully in the sky, he heard a shrill and unmistakable noise -- a horse's whinny. He swore under his breath, but his body could not move faster through the sand, only more desperately.\n\n[img[gas][30]]\n</div></div>

<div id="evewrapper"><div id="text"><<timed 1.5s>>When he woke, it was to the feeling of the pit buried in his stomach. A knife could free it. In the dark he could not see his pocket knife; he could only feel it, skimming his fingers along the blade. Would it reach deep enough? If he sliced his throat open, would the mortal convulsions drive the pit up and out of the hole in his neck? Like a pearl in grey flesh.\n\nHe breathed and set the knife aside. He found his pouch of dhan and the matches alongside it. The first match fizzled. He lit another. This one held, igniting the dhan packed into his pipe. The room had no windows, no stars to give reprieve from the darkness. He could see only the red stirring fitfully in the pipe, like a child kicking at blankets. Like himself while he dreamt.\n\nHe wiped dried sweat from his face. He remembered the crying, the night before he left. Usually the guards chose well. They had an eye for those who would stay silent or those who could be silenced. This was done for the mages' sake, not the guards', and certainly not for his. But that night, they had chosen poorly with her, and the whole caravan had been forced to listen. He had understood every plea and curse she howled at them. She had managed to bite two of the guards, he later learned, before killing herself beneath the horses. \n\nAfter soothing the alarmed creatures, the guards consulted the mages on whether they needed to hold any purification rituals. Some of the horses' hooves still had slave blood on them. That could not be auspicious, they said.\n\n[img[gas][41]]<</timed>>\n</div></div>

<<if $tool3 is "a flask of healing ointment">><<goto "healingwash">><<elseif $water is true>><<goto "waterwash">>\n<<else>><<goto "nothingwash">><<endif>>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text"><<timed 1.5s>>He left in the owl's hour, in the deep and clear blackness of night. The air was as silent as wingfall. Overhead the stars stood guard, glinting like a thousand distant spearheads. He could not say how long had passed since the caravan had gathered for its evening meal, but it was long enough that he saw few mortal guards as he skirted the torchlight of the wagons. \n\nThe decision to leave the caravan had come upon him suddenly -- as sudden as the death of a man whose racing heart had woken him every night for years, he supposed. For most of his time here, he thought he was rotting. When they traveled a week across the desert without bathing, and the dull beige under his nails turned to black, he saw this as a revelation. That grime was the truth, and every stop to bathe and scrub it away was a deception that stretched out thinner and thinner across the years.\n\nBut yesterday, looking at his hands while he smoked, he realized that this had been wrong for some time now. He was more like a fallen tree, having lain dead on the ground for months. The filth caking his hands in a second dun skin was not rot. It was the moss and the lichen and the termites and all the new life devouring his hollow corpse. He had the chance now, he realized, to become something green and new.\n\nHe stole from the caravan a small bag of supplies, a few things he could snatch on his way out. He had packed the necessary provisions: food, water, a pocket knife, a tarp, and his matches, pipe, and smoking dhan. He had also taken <<cyclinglink "$tool1" "a large hunting knife" "a coil of rope">>, <<cyclinglink "$tool2" "a pair of throwing daggers" "a handful of gem-studded rings">>, and <<cyclinglink "$tool3" "a pot of cooling salve" "a flask of healing ointment">>. \n\n[img[gas][2]]<</timed>></div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">Time must have passed. He counted by the number of sharp jabs that came through the soles of his boots. Rocks were scattered rarely among the sand; the sudden sting of stepping on one roused him enough to shuffle to the next one. He counted to fifty before he looked back. The caravan remained in sight, the wagons like a pack of whelps huddled together for warmth. He could see no movement from this distance, nor make out any figures. He turned back to the east.\n\nSoon after he resumed walking, the cold began to sink through his robes. He felt his feet must be slowing. The night slid soft hands into his sleeves and stroked his arms until shudders ran up his neck and down his back. He had to stop, after descending a dune, and crouch in its shadow. He scrubbed at himself, rough gloved hands chasing away the gentle ones of the night.\n\nNot even the owls hunted now, he thought. No serpent dared the frigid air, no rodent or scaly creature. Sleep touched his shoulder. The dune behind him had risen and risen beneath his struggling feet. He had hardly possessed the energy to descend it without slipping. The caravan would not notice him for a few hours yet.\n\nHe could spare some time [[to rest|4 rest]], or he could [[pray to Sa|5 pray]] for fortitude.\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">With his little pack filled, he headed east. When the guards realized his absence in the morning, the sun would still be rising and glaring into the eyes of his pursuers.\n\nThe sand sucked at his heels as he walked into the darkness. The dead night hung down from the sky, not heavy with heat as it would be in the daytime. The world felt empty. He remembered the shore of Ghyn, nearly ten years ago, a woman whose name he did not know asleep in the sand beside him. He remembered the sea, churning nearly unseen in the space beyond the shore. He could only make out its convulsions, its shades darkening into shadows, shadows darkening into ghouls.\n\nHe had felt half-divine that night. He felt that the entire world was poured into that ocean, all the desperate writhing of man and beast and death and life. He thought he would grasp the course of everything, if only he could see more clearly. But the moon never shone; the waves that night remained impenetrable, and in the morning, the sea was a shallow translucent blue.\n\nTonight, he thought, was that same divine emptiness. Black flickered and folded in on itself at the edges of his vision. He imagined now and again the flutter of wings in the dark. If he could turn his head at the right moment, he would see a woman emerge from the black folds, her body feathered and fingers hooked into claws. The terrible span of her wings would be still less gruesome than her copper-bright eyes. \n\n[img[gas][3]]\n</div></div>

data:image/png;base64,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

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He did not expect that Sa would answer the prayers of a sinner. Surely, he thought, it was his own desperation that deceived him into feeling revived. <<if $pray1 is "to quell his hunger and thirst">>Within minutes, his stomach seemed filled and his mouth no longer stone-dry.<<else>>Within minutes, his legs seemed loose and his feet no longer throbbed.<<endif>> He prayed for less time than he would have slept, and <<if $pray1 is "to fortify his limbs">>he rose to his feet on strengthened muscles<<else>>he did not need his canteen before he rose<<endif>>. Perhaps Sa possessed enough patience, or curiosity, to indulge a sinner's attempt at penance. <<if $pray1 is "to fortify his limbs">>Though his lips cracked and his tongue felt swollen in his dry mouth<<else>> Though his legs shivered and stumbled in the sand<<endif>>, he did not suffer the same fatigue as before. He was still walking when dawn broke, bloody light spilling over the horizon and into his eyes, and he did not stop for a long time after.\n\nThe sands in the distance shimmered like rain. Bronze and gold dripped toward each other, converging at the glimmer of the horizon. The only sanity for many hours was the painted sky above him. The blue shone like it too was carved of metal -- a gleaming marble ceiling with white veins of occasional clouds. It wanted very much, he thought, to be beautiful.\n\nThe next relief from monotony came in the dusty form of a ground bird. It pattered around the brambles of some wiry desert growth. He did not know the plant's name, although Sa would tell him if he heard it. The bird and the plant were the same dull ragged brown, but only one of them edible, if he could catch it. He knew the birds ran like devils, as fast as their winged cousins flew. They were usually hunted from afar, shot by arrow or throwing dagger.\n\n<<if $tool2 is "a pair of throwing daggers">>He could [[throw|7 throw dagger]] one of his hunting daggers at the bird<<else>>He could [[ a rock|8 throw rock]] at the bird<<endif>>, <<if $pray is true>>or he could try to [[sneak up|10 sneak pray]] on it.<<else>>or he could try to [[sneak up|9 sneak nopray]] on it.<<endif>>\n</div></div>

dhan

@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Amarante|Raleway|Halant|Overlock+SC');\n\nhtml, body, #wrapper, #nightwrapper, #evewrapper {\nwidth: 100%;\nheight: 100%;}\n\nbody {\nmargin-left: -3.5em;\nbackground-color: rgb(227,187,136);\noverflow: hidden;\nfont-family: 'Halant', serif;\nfont-size: 1.1rem;\ncolor: #2E1C04;\n/*background-image: [img[60-lines]];\nbackground-repeat: repeat;*/\n}\n\nbody.eve {\nbackground-color: #372204;\nfont-family: 'Halant', serif;\ncolor: #EBD7C3;\nopacity: .7;\nfont-size: 1.1rem;\n}\n\nbody.eve a {\ncolor: #EBD7C3;\nfont-weight: 700;\ntext-decoration: none;\n}\n\nbody.eve a:hover {\ncolor: #599A7C;\nfont-weight: 700;\ntext-decoration: none;\n}\n\nbody.night {\nbackground-color: black;\nfont-family: 'Raleway', sans-serif;\ncolor: #DFE3F0;\nopacity: .8;\nfont-size: 1.2rem;\n}\n\nbody.night .passage {\nline-height: 27px;\n}\n\nbody.night a {\ncolor: #DFE3F0;\nfont-weight: 700;\ntext-decoration: none;\n}\n\nbody.night a:hover {\ncolor: #599A7C;\nfont-weight: 700;\ntext-decoration: none;\n}\n\n.title {\nfont-size: 15rem;\ndisplay: block;\ntext-align: right;\n}\n\n.title a, .title a:hover, .title a.external {\nfont-weight: 500 !important;\n}\n\n.subtitle {\ndisplay: block;\ntext-align: right;\nfont-size: 1.2rem;\n}\n\n.talk {\nfont-family: 'Raleway', sans-serif;\nfont-size: .9rem;\ncolor: #372204;\n}\n\n.tall {\nfont-family: 'Raleway', sans-serif;\nfont-size: .9rem;\ncolor: #E9DFD5;\n}\n\n.passage {\ntext-align: left;\nline-height: 22px;\n}\n\nimg {\ndisplay: block;\nmargin: 0 auto;\nmargin-top: 20px;\n}\n\nimg:hover {\ntransform: scale(.9);\n}\n\na, a:visited {\ncolor: black;\nfont-weight: 700;\n}\n\na:hover {\ncolor: #599A7C;\nfont-weight: 700;\ntext-decoration: none;\n}\n\n#wrapper {\n-webkit-box-shadow: inset 0px 0px 250px 70px #BE8A46;\nbox-shadow: inset 0px 0px 250px 70px #BE8A46;\nposition: absolute;\nleft: 0;\ntop: 0;\n}\n\n#evewrapper {\n-webkit-box-shadow: inset 0px 0px 250px 70px #241303;\nbox-shadow: inset 0px 0px 250px 70px #241303;\nposition: absolute;\nleft: 0;\ntop: 0;\n}\n\n#nightwrapper {\n-webkit-box-shadow: inset 0px 0px 250px 70px #121D3F;\nbox-shadow: inset 0px 0px 250px 70px #121D3F;\nposition: absolute;\nleft: 0;\ntop: 0;\n}\n\n#text {\nposition: absolute;\nleft: 17%;\ntop: 20%;\nwidth: 65%;\npadding: 20px;\n}\n\n#nighttext {\nposition: absolute;\nleft: 17%;\ntop: 15%;\nwidth: 65%;\npadding: 20px;\n}\n\n#titletext {\nposition: absolute;\nleft: 17%;\ntop: 15%;\nwidth: 55%;\npadding: 20px;\n}\n\n#ui-bar {\n\tdisplay: none;\n}\n\n.revision-span-in {\n\topacity: 0;\n}\n.revision-span:not(.revision-span-out) {\n\ttransition: 1s; -webkit-transition: 1s;\n}\n.revision-span-out {\n\tposition:absolute;\n\topacity: 0;\n}\n\n#passages a.link-external:after {\n\tcontent: normal;\n}\n\n@media screen and (max-width: 960px) {\n .passage { font-size: 90%; width: 70%; }\n}\n@media screen and (max-width: 840px) {\n .passage { font-size: 87.5%; width: 80%; }\n}\n@media screen and (max-width: 720px) {\n .passage { font-size: 75%; width: 90%; }\n}

<div id="nightwrapper"><div id="text"><<timed 2s>>\n@@.title;ذنب@@\n<<next 2s>>\n@@.subtitle;the end@@\n<</timed>>\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text"><<timed 2s>>It might have gone another way.\n\n<<next 3s>>When Sa [[woke him|42]] in the night.\n\n<<next 2s>>Even earlier, when he [[first glimpsed|30]] the town.<</timed>>\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">Breathing raggedly in the predawn, he tried to catch his frantic hands and slow them, but they tore desperately at his jaws and teeth. His mouth rattled as if it were being struck by a hammer. He let out a whimper -- he could feel the sound only in his throat, could not hear it over the thrumming in his ears. He was going to vomit. His jaw was splitting open at the joints. \n\nHe gagged on bile as he struggled to sit up, tearing the tarp out of the ground. The hammer swung again at his jaw -- from his right side. Blind with pain, he shoved tarp and tools into his pack and staggered to his feet. He gagged again and spat bile into the sand. He needed to <<linkappend "run.">>\n\nHis feet slid and stumbled in the sand, dumb from sleep. He veered hard left, away from the hammer, jogging from desert to dirt to desert again. He pushed himself until he could finally hear his own wracked breathing, the vibrations reduced to a haze in his ears. His mouth still stung with bile and panic. He imagined he could hear shouts in the distance and the thunder of horses.\n\nHe threw <<if $water is false>>the last of the <<endif>>water on his face and blinked hard in the faint light of morning. His lungs sounded like those of a dying man. He could not remember the last time he had felt terrified. He could not remember the last time he possessed anything worth fearing for.\n\n[img[gas][29]]<</linkappend>>\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">Tattered as he was, the townspeople regarded him with unkind yet unsurprised eyes. He convinced one to direct him to the tavern, where he hoped to buy a room for the night. The entrance to the tavern was a mere doorframe with split pieces of hide nailed to the top. He pushed through them and into a quiet room, unoccupied at this time of day. \n\nHe had stolen from the caravan enough coin to last him a few days in civilization, and he gladly gave some over in exchange for a room upstairs. His was the only spare room, the other belonging to the family who owned the tavern. He followed his travel routine of resting the afternoon away -- in a bed for once. He struggled to remember the last time he had slept on something other than sand or his cot in the caravan wagon. It must have been in a brothel, he decided, a hazy remembrance at best.\n\nAfter a couple hours of sleep, hunger drove him downstairs into the tavern proper. The room had filled since midday: a couple dozen people were gathered to drink and make merry. Few cared to notice his presence, and for that he was grateful. Only a serving girl approached him, where he sat alone on a wooden chair the same dusty color as his sun-soaked robes. After the girl brought him the food and drink he had requested, she tarried near his table.\n\n@@.talk;You aren't a merchant.@@ She had peculiar eyes for this region, a woody brown flecked with green leaves. She could not have been more than eleven or twelve.\n\n@@.talk;No, not anymore@@, he agreed. <<set $girl to true>>\n\n[img[gas][35]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">To his west, the land descended more gradually. He estimated it would be midday by the time he reached the bottom, and nearly as long to loop back to the town. He would arrive at the peak of the day's heat, or shortly beforehand, if nothing went amiss.\n\nHis first estimate proved more realistic. The initial walk west passed uneventfully. But as the land sloped downward, the ground became unsteady: sheets of shale rock, as long as a man, sometimes loosened themselves from the earth and skidded down the hill. They shattered against great boulders that dotted the path and left piles of debris in their wake.\n\nHe avoided all but one. It slipped underfoot like a snake shaking loose an unwanted scale, and his feet kicked up, throwing him off balance. He landed in a scramble, clawing at something to halt his downward slide. His hands missed, but his foot slammed into a rock, jolting pain up his leg. Still, it broke his fall, and he had the luxury now to gather his breath and swear at the pain.\n\nHe wedged his back carefully against the rock and took stock of himself. The fall had shredded his sleeves. In their place, a thick layer of white powder and flecks of stones coated his arms. Beneath that, he could feel the first pricklings of torn skin, and he trusted that red would soon seep through the grey and white.\n\n[img[gas][heading]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">Although ostensibly a hunting knife, the large blade possessed the sharpness and heft to cut through anything in the desert. His fear was not the knife failing to cut, but that it would cut too deeply and spill precious water into the dust. He found a budding growth off the side of one of the anazde that he could grip in his hand. He struck at the thick yellow skin that joined the bud to the main plant. The blade wedged itself into the skin and refused several times to come loose; he had to release the anazde and tug with both hands to free the knife. This time, he kept both hands on the knife for a stronger chop. \n\nThe bud began to cleave away, leaking sticky dew that he barely resisted licking at. He grabbed the bud and hacked away the last of the conjoining flesh. Then he tore the piece off the trunk and drank the water stored within. To his surprise, it tasted not unlike the berries by his grandmother's house, although paler in flavor. It had the berries' sweetness, and it had the guilty dirt of them, plucked off the bush when no one was looking and sheltered in grubby little hands.\n\nAfter his second mouthful of the anazde water, his stomach revolted. It felt like a desiccated leather pouch suddenly flooded with wine. He paused in drinking and rubbed some of the water onto his neck. He could see no better course than to carry the anazde in hand as he walked, sipping from it occasionally. Pouring it into a flask would spill too much.\n\nBefore he left, he considered the anazde patch and the raw white hole he had carved into the plant. It still leaked dew like slow, slobbery tears, but he did not know how edible that substance was, nor any way to heal the anazde of its wounds. He trusted that it had lived a long time in the desert before his arrival, and he left it to the gods to maintain that.\n<<set $water to true>>\n[img[gas][21]]\n</div></div>

<<if $choose is "He needed to cause a diversion to cover his escape">><<goto "46">><<else>><<goto "escape">><<endif>>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">\n\n</div></div>\n\n\n<<cyclinglink "$tool1" "a pair of throwing daggers" "a large hunting knife">>\n<<cyclinglink "$tool2" "a coil of rope" "a handful of gem-studded rings">>\n<<cyclinglink "$tool3" "a pot of cooling salve" "a flask of healing ointment">>\n\n\n<<cyclinglink "$pray1" "to quell his hunger and thirst" "to fortify his limbs">>\n<<cyclinglink "$pray2" "guide his steps" "conceal his presence">>\n<<set $pray to true>>\n<<set $water to true>>\n\n[img[gas][Start]]

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">Outside, the desert chill rushed into his nose and pricked at his chest and arms. He realized that the fall down the cliff had torn away parts of his robes and bared some of his skin. He did what he could to wrap the remaining rags more modestly around himself before he set off.\n\nHe followed the distant haze of a torch and, as he came closer, the hum of voices and merriment. The town's tavern also featured a doorframe covered by split pieces of hide. He pushed through them and into a room far too bright and nauseatingly alive -- a few dozen people in a warm sweaty space, too much like a caravan wagon. He felt the ground rock beneath his feet; cups scraped across wooden tables like creaking wheels.\n\nHe steadied himself enough to approach the owner and request a room. He had stolen from the caravan enough coin to last him a few days in civilization; he gladly gave some over in exchange for an escape from the tavern. Upstairs, he slumped into the bed with a throbbing in his skull like thunder and lightning both -- long dark reverberations split by cracks of white-hot pain. He curled around his bag and soon passed back into the dark.\n\n[img[gas][dreams]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">The traveler regarded him for a moment, and then a slow arm rose from their side, pointing beyond the pack-beast and into the dawning dark. @@.talk;Half a day@@, the traveler croaked. The traveler's voice sounded as stiff as his own, like jerky salted and left to dry in the sun. He felt the dry ridges in his throat when he inquired further, about the people, the lodging in the town, whether he could stay.\n\nThe traveler lowered their arm. A full wrap concealed their face, tan strips of cloth attached to the rims of the wooden sand-goggles the traveler wore over their eyes. Through the slits in the wood, he could see only shadow. The traveler expressed uncertainty about all his questions. The town did not lay along their path; they had not visited there often.\n\nHe could ask about [[trading supplies|25 trade]] or [[thank the traveler|26 thank]] and move on.\n</div></div>

data:image/png;base64,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

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">@@.talk;I don't remember places very well@@, he confessed.\n\n@@.talk;Are they all the same?@@\n\nHe nodded. @@.talk;They're all the same.@@\n\n@@.talk;Then what's the point of traveling so much?@@\n\n@@.talk;To leave@@, he said. @@.talk;Not to go anywhere. Just to leave.@@\n\nShe wrinkled her nose and turned away. He left an extra coin for her and returned to his room, exhausted by the press of people. The people downstairs would fill perhaps two wagons, if they needed to travel a far distance. One wagon, if they could be sold in the next town and would not have the time to become soaked with each other's sweat and fleas. \n\nHe breathed slowly, but he could not convince his mind that the clink of coin and cup was not that of chains. He could smell the fearful stench of the wagons around him, and against closed eyelids the sunlight flickered through the cloth flaps. He rolled over and pushed his head into the thin pillow.\n\nEnough. He needed to sleep.\n\n[img[gas][dreams]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He followed the distant haze of a torch and, as he came closer, the hum of voices and merriment. The entrance to the tavern was a mere doorframe with split pieces of hide nailed to the top. He pushed through them and into a room far too bright and nauseatingly alive -- a few dozen people in a warm sweaty space, too much like a caravan wagon. He felt the ground rock beneath his feet; cups scraped across wooden tables like creaking wheels.\n\nHe steadied himself enough to approach the owner and request a room. He had stolen from the caravan money to last him a few days in civilization; he gladly gave some over in exchange for a room. His was the only spare room on the second floor, the other belonging to the family who owned the tavern. Upstairs, seated on the bed and his feet on the floor, he could still hear the thrum of people beneath him. They would fill perhaps two wagons, if they needed to travel a far distance. One wagon, if they could be sold in the next town and would not have the time to become soaked with each other's sweat and fleas. \n\nHe breathed slowly, but he could not convince his mind that the clink of coin and cup was not that of chains. He could smell the fearful stench of the wagons around him, and against closed eyelids the sunlight flickered through the cloth flaps. He would ask for food later, he decided. \n\nRest came first.\n\n[img[gas][dreams]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He had not wanted to attract the trouble that knives bring, so he had left the great hunting knife in the wagon where it had lain, sheathed like a muzzled beast. He had watched some of the guards hack up the meat of horses with it, when the beasts misstepped in the sand and snapped a leg bone, baldly white and yellow with sinew where it protruded from their skin. He remembered the hunger of the blade, the metal flashing gaily in the sun, undeterred by the streaks of blood painting its maw. He preferred his own hands.\n\nHe considered the patch of anazde. The plants had vivid yellow trunks that stood about waist height, with offshoots growing from them in little budding spheres. That the anazde was indeed all spherical, not linear, he decided would not be a hindrance. He found a small bud off the side that he could grip in his hand. His first warning should have been when he gripped the bud, and the gummy skin of the anazde remained as hard as stone beneath the pressure. Yet he persevered, yanking on the bud as if it were a stubborn tooth. He might have been pulling on the hand of a statue for all the anazde cared. \n\nNothing in the desert moved but his own scrabbling feet and rough breathing. He felt the sun peering down at him in curiosity, and he imagined the ridiculous sight of him, a bag of bones held together by rags waging war against the cheerfully yellow anazde. He released the bud and kicked the trunk. When that too left no impact, he succumbed to his foe. He grabbed his fallen pack, fixed his head wrap, and marched away from the patch thirstier than he had arrived.\n<<set $water to false>>\n[img[gas][21]]\n</div></div>

<div id="evewrapper"><div id="text">Soon townspeople were rushing into the streets. He backed away from the tavern as the crowd swelled. Movements obscured by the noise and frenzy of alarm, he slipped through the streets. He could continue east, he prayed, without being noticed.\n\nHe paused for a moment, concealed behind a building, and pressed his thumbs to his mouth. His fingers tasted of matches and smelled of sweat and dhan. He sought out the Wisdom: could he safely head east? His teeth had slowed in their vibration, and the hum in his head was now only a hum. He could not wait on clearer omens than that.\n\nFar more than himself now smelled of smoke. Torches were alight across the town. He broke out from the eastern line of houses, jogging into the dark. The clamor behind him subsided, and no hoofbeats nor shouts took its place. He did not stop until the sun rose. \n\nAt the first sight of red, he sank to his knees in prayer.\n\n[img[gas][48]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">With pursuers at his back, it was too much of a risk to take the long path. And the cliff was not a sheer drop: stones, and crevices where stones had once nestled, afforded him some amount of footholds. Before attempting the climb, he sat a short while at the top of the cliff, praying that his limbs might restore themselves somehow. His legs felt as if they had been brutalized by hounds, the muscles shredded and bones gnawed.\n\nBut when no reprieve came, he sighed and hoisted himself over the edge. Not a third of the way down, his arm shook uncontrollably, the tendons pulled so tight they could have snapped. The fingers of his right hand flinched in sympathy, and he lost grip of the ledge. He clung on with his other hand, his left arm rattling against the rock wall. He swung his right arm up and found another rock to clutch. This relieved his left side, but not enough: the damage had been done. He was going to fall.\n\nWith precious moments of strength left, he scrambled slipshod down the wall, snatching and releasing holds as fast as he could find them. Whether he missed a hold or his strength gave out first, he could not say -- but his limbs were for an instant weightless, uncurling gratefully into the air. \n\nHe struck the ground and knew [[no more|31]].\n</div></div>

<div id="evewrapper"><div id="text">Sa's warnings were edicts, not suggestions. He shoved knife and pipe into his bag and clattered down the tavern stairs. The first floor stood deserted, as silent as the town outside. He burst through the tavern door already breathing hard. The night flowed coldly around him. His exhausted limbs were twitching like a dog half-drowned and sinking into the weight of the river. He fled.\n\nAs he ran, his pack thumped against his back -- with what weight? He had few supplies left. He would die of thirst before the next town. The sand gulped at his feet, and he skidded into the corner of a house. He breathed there a moment, straining to catch a hint of his pursuers' position. His jaws groaned; the humming filled his ears like a swarm of locusts. He refused to retch. He staggered on.\n\nNear the edge of town, he saw a horse bound to a post -- of course, he realized, he could steal one and outrun them. His trembling fingers scratched at the knot tying the horse down. His vision began to blur, but eventually the knot came loose. He dragged the startled horse down the road. Some all-tongues swore they could communicate even with beasts. He knew he could not, but he hissed at it anyway.\n\nThe horse, uneasy, trotted with him until the last house in town. Then it jolted as if shot by arrow and reared up, yanking the rope from his hand. The horse pranced back, away from the torchlight -- [[torchlight|44]]?\n\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">The night air smelled faintly burnt. Thoughts of smoke made his jaw itch again for his pipe. He would smoke it the entire night if he let himself. He restrained himself for maybe an hour before he pulled it out again and stuffed it with dhan. He lit his pipe and walked slowly, wondering if it was more foolish to give off smoke now, when they might be making camp and staring up at the sky, or if it had been worse in the daytime, when it was more visible. \n\nHe decided that he did not care, even as his mind conjured up images of hot tar and venom-laced fangs and a paring knife down the sole of his foot, skinning him alive from the bottom up. The increasingly convoluted torture methods brought him more reassurance than dread: even if he was a god-touched man, he was only a single man. The caravan would not waste so much time and precious intellect on him. A flogging, he decided, or at best a simple mutilation. He could bear those.\n\nHe walked until he lost awareness of whether the darkness was the world or his own closed eyes. Then he sank down, no dune for protection, no care left in him tonight, and he slept.\n\n[img[gas][16]]\n</div></div>

<div id="nightwrapper"><div id="nighttext"><<timed 1.5s>>He never saw them afterward. <<link "The women.">><<replace "#first">><<display dreaming>><</replace>><</link>>\n\n<span id="first"></span>\n\n<span id="second"></span><</timed>>\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">With the waning of the sun, the heat of the day began to recede. He found another dune to camp beneath. There he stretched out his limbs<<if $pray1 is "to fortify his limbs">><<else>>, his muscles strung as tight as steel wire,<<endif>> and prepared a meal. After eating, he rested until true night, passing the time with his pipe. The dhan burned acridly in the last of the heat, its grey smoke hardly visible against the burning of the sunset.\n\nWhen night came, he ascended the dune to look for torches. He saw no lights across the sand, although another dune might conceal his death as easily as it hid him from them. Conceal his death? Only if the gods took pity. He did not know what the caravan would do when they caught him, other than drag him back. \n\nAs he broke camp and packed his supplies, he drafted in his mind a list of potential punishments. Removing a hand, or an eye, or both; carving //slaver// into his arm, or branding his face with it so he could never flee to civilization. Castration. Amputation of a full limb. Maybe both his legs, if a healing mage vouched for their ability to keep him alive. He pulled his pack on and set out.\n\n[img[gas][15]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">As he walked on, the sun grew livid. \n\nThe desert was a kiln, with the sun as its source of infernal heat, and everything within blazed and cracked and hardened. Heat infused the sand that lashed up at his feet. The heat penetrated his robes and even his body; it seemed to radiate out from underneath his own skin, only to strangle and rage in the constraints of his robes. \n\nHe had lived too many years with the caravan to indulge its anger. He refused to disrobe and give over his skin to the blistering sun, jealous as it was that he still dared to cast shadow in the flat landscape.<<if $pray is true>> But he had not slept in so long, and provisions and prayers could only supply him with so much energy. It would be wiser to rest now and escape the inescapable heat than it would be to push himself to sick exhaustion.<<else>> Still, he was never one to antagonize. He considered resting for the afternoon and escaping the heat's inescapable wrath for a few hours.<</if>>\n\nHe could [[rest now|12 rest]] or [[push onward|13 onward]].\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He had not wanted to attract the trouble that knives bring, so he had left the great hunting knife in the wagon where it had lain, sheathed like a muzzled beast. He had watched some of the guards hack up the meat of horses with it, when the beasts misstepped in the sand and snapped a leg bone, baldly white and yellow with sinew where it protruded from their skin. He remembered the hunger of the blade, the metal flashing gaily in the sun, undeterred by the streaks of blood painting its maw. His pocket knife suited him fine.\n\nNot that it was the ideal tool for penetrating the gummy skin of the anazde. He hunted for a narrower part of the plant, settling for a small growth off the side, a globular bud he could grip in his left hand. With his little knife, he sawed at the connecting flesh, first from one side, then the other, the blade piercing half as far into the plant as he needed. Slowly he carved away the exterior layer. The flesh fell off in chunks that sounded hollow and woodlike when they hit the ground. \n\nThe anazde began to weep a sort of dew, a sticky clear substance that soon coated his knife and gloves. When he paused in his work, he realized that shaking his hand did not loose the dew from it. A silly panic struck him, too much time spent in the company of mages -- he thought of curses, of fruit stolen from a mage's garden that stained the thief's tongue an inky black. He stripped off his gloves and threw them down. He rolled them around in the dirt until the dew was scuffed off, replaced by a more acceptable coat of grime. Satisfied that a vengeful plant had not spewed a curse on him, he pulled his gloves on and resumed his work.\n\n[img[gas][19.5]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He had nothing to gain from exposing himself to a stranger. At best, they would question him and his lack of supplies. Perhaps they would pity him with a drink of water. But too many questions would lead to the truth, and he had no desire to revisit that. More likely the pity would be contempt -- a spear between the ribs, a club to the head. \n\nHe slunk back down the dune and headed south for as long as fear still energized his steps. The humming in his head dulled and quieted, until he could not distinguish it from his own pulse throbbing warmly in his ears.\n\n[img[gas][27]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">@@.talk;You aren't a merchant.@@ She had peculiar eyes for this region, a woody brown flecked with green leaves. She could not have been more than eleven or twelve.\n\n@@.talk;Not anymore,@@ he agreed.\n\n@@.talk;Were you robbed?@@\n\n@@.talk;No.@@\n\n@@.talk;Where are you traveling?@@\n\n@@.talk;Where would you recommend?@@\n\nShe laughed, the little leaves in her eyes trembling in the breeze. Of course he knew that she had never left this town. He prayed she never would. She shook her head and left to fetch drinks for other tables. When she returned with more for him, she pressed again, this time asking about past journeys.\n\n[img[gas][39]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He had a pathetic throwing arm, so he had not bothered to grab the throwing zdi when he left the caravan. Nor did he have much skill in stealth, despite his successful escape thus far. His approach was half-hearted, a waddling crouch that the bird noticed within moments. It seemed almost pitying of his failure -- or mocking -- as it declined twice to flee. It merely hopped out of arm's reach and regarded him coldly, its quick little eyes as black as the zdi he should have brought.\n\nHe was the one to lose patience first. He lunged at the bird, landing flat on his stomach in an eruption of silty dust. As he coughed and waved away the yellow fog, he caught a glimpse of the bird's bobbing tail feathers before it left his sight. He staggered back to his feet and beat off some of the dust before resuming his slow march east.\n\n[img[gas][11]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He sat against the base of the dune and set his pack beside him. He stripped off his gloves, stiff with dried sweat. Then he pressed his thumbnails, filthy as they were, to his cracked lips, and he closed his eyes in prayer to the Wisdom.\n\nNeither of his parents had been god-touched. Even so, no one doubted that he was a child of Sa: the priests had confirmed him at a very young age. They might have known even earlier, but he had always been taciturn, even as a child. Not until asked directly did he confirm that he understood the foreign merchants and tradesmen, and that he could recall hundreds of lines of bard song heard once in a noisy tavern. \n\nHe wished he had realized the gravity of that answer, the strangeness of himself. He could have replied to the priests' suspicions with nothing more than a child's shy silence. Gods knew he would rather be a mute than an all-tongue. \n\nHe shared none of these thoughts with Sa, although he doubted the Wisdom would feel any surprise at them. Instead he offered praise, recited great epithets and wondrous deeds, as he entreated Sa <<cyclinglink "$pray1" "to quell his hunger and thirst" "to fortify his limbs">> and <<cyclinglink "$pray2" "guide his steps" "conceal his presence">>. <<set $pray to true>>\n\n[img[gas][6]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text"><<timed 1.5s>><<if $pray1 is "to quell his hunger and thirst">>He had estimated a three-day walk to the nearest town, although he had no landmarks by which to know his progress. He knew the town lay somewhere out of the desert, on the dusty outskirts bordering the sand. So today he wandered from a purely eastern path. Instead, he followed after any vegetation, no matter how ragged or sparse, in hope of finding water along the way.<<else>>He realized in the morning that he had drunk too much of his water. He could not remember when it had happened, or if he had not sealed the canteen tightly enough and let some dry up. Regardless of the cause, he did not think that this water would last him to the nearest eastern town. Today, he did not take a straight line east, but instead followed after any vegetation, no matter how ragged or sparse, in hope of finding water.<<endif>>\n\nHis plan seemed to have some worth. As he walked, the sand broke around more and more rocks, and finally pockets of dirt emerged -- the soil baked as hard as stone, but soil nonetheless. His hunt culminated in a patch of squat, bloated anazde. A more sickly yellow than the sand or sun, the anazde looked phantasmic in this gritty landscape, like some child's wishful addition. Yet the plants stored potable water, if he could hack through the thick skin. \n\n<<if $tool1 is "a large hunting knife">>He could pull the [[hunting knife|18 hunting]] from his pack<<else>>He could use the small [[pocket knife|19 pocket]] he carried<<endif>>, or he could use [[his hands|20 hands]].\n<</timed>>\n</div></div>

<div id="nightwrapper"><div id="nighttext"><<timed 1.5s>>He dreamed of their <<link "hair.">><<replace "#firsthalf">><<display firsty>><</replace>><</link>>\n\n<span id="firsthalf"></span>\n\n<span id="secondhalf"></span><</timed>>\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">The traveler eyed the limp pack hanging off his back. @@.talk;Show me@@, they said. \n\nHe slid his pack down and dug out the <<if $tool3 is "a pot of cooling salve">>pot of cooling salve<<else>>healing ointment<<endif>>.\n\n@@.talk;What is it?@@\n\n@@.talk;A boon@@, he answerd. He explained its <<if $tool3 is "a pot of cooling salve">>cooling<<else>>healing<<endif>> properties to the traveler, who patted their beast's impatient flank. After consideration, the traveler tipped their head in interest. They unslung a pack from the beast, who snorted in contempt and tossed its head. \n\nThe traveler offered a small amount of provisions, to which he agreed after a little bartering. He needed water more than <<if $tool3 is "a pot of cooling salve">>salve<<else>>ointment<<endif>> if he wanted to survive until the next town.\n<<set $water to true>><<set $tool3 to "none">>\n[img[gas][26 thank]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">After two botched attempts at speaking, he wheezed out, @@.talk;I don't advise it.@@ \n\nHis head felt twice too large and his tongue swollen in his mouth. He was certain that it operated only through Sa's power, not his own. He told the thieves as much, and they hesitated, not prepared to murder a man god-touched, even if that god was the benign force of Wisdom.\n\n@@.talk;Help me, and I'll ask blessings for all of you.@@\n\nThe thieves murmured to each other - young voices, perhaps children - and then faintly agreed to his terms. They promised to return with assistance. As their voices slipped away, he thought briefly of Sa. He should have apologized for taking the Wisdom's name for his own sake, but he did not have the chance. Darkness soon came over <<linkreplace "him.">>him, and then waking again in a cooler darkness.\n\n<<timed 3s>>The first bed in three days. The first smell other than sand or sweat or fear. A woman near his bed smelled of incense. She dabbed a cloth in water and slowly wrung it out with her dark leather hands. If they had been children, surely she was their grandmother.\n\nHe could [[speak]] to her or keep his [[silence]].<</timed>><</linkreplace>>\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He always dreamt of the women. Any dream without them had not lasted long enough. If he could return to sleep, prolong it, always it led to them in the end. They touched his chest and his head with childish, curious hands. He wanted to remain asleep, or to remain pretending to sleep. But the hands grew bold and pushed at his shoulder, rolling him over and into the light.\n\nHe woke to a mouthful of dust, his face pressed to the earth. His arm was moving without his will, and his pack was sliding across his back. Voices behind his head finally provided an explanation: there were hands on his arm, unhooking it from the strap of his pack.\n\nHe groaned and flapped his arm at the thief. Not an impressive showing, but it proved he was not a corpse to be robbed. A cluster of voices broke out, shocked at his survival. One in particular sounded hostile, and it proposed an equally hostile solution to his being alive. \n\nHe rolled slowly onto his back, the pack crushed awkwardly under his side.\n\n[img[gas][32]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">At last the sand scattered into rocks and powdered silt. Although his feet skidded on the strange smoothness of it, he decided to follow the trail of rocks up a low slope. Atop it, he realized that he must have been climbing for longer than he had realized: the slope was more accurately a small cliff overlooking the valley below. He had not remembered a town sunk into the hollows of the earth like this. He must have bypassed the nearer town sometime in the night. Regardless, civilization lay below him now, a modest cluster of rosy clay walls and roofs baked auburn.\n\nHe looked around for the best path down. The cliff was steep, but not so high that he could not clearly see people moving through the town. His only other route was a far trek west, out to where this slope declined and joined the flat earth around it. From there, he could descend safely, but he would spend most of his day walking the distance there and back around to the town.\n\nHe could [[climb down]] the cliff<<if $tool1 is "a coil of rope">> using the rope in his pack<<endif>> or [[head around]] the long way.\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">The man clucked his tongue, and the work-beast raised its head, ears flicking in anticipation. He slipped away from the old man and down the road until he reached the tavern. The entrance to the tavern was a mere doorframe with split pieces of hide nailed to the top. He pushed through them and into a room far too bright and nauseatingly alive -- a few dozen people in a warm sweaty space, too much like a caravan wagon. He felt the ground rock beneath his feet; cups scraped across wooden tables like creaking wheels.\n\nHe steadied himself enough to approach the owner and request a room. He had stolen from the caravan money to last him a few days in civilization; he gladly gave some over in exchange for an escape from the tavern. His was the only spare room on the second floor, the other belonging to the family who owned the tavern. He sank gratefully onto the bed, the first in too long a time. Only after a few hours of sleep did he return to the tavern downstairs. The room had filled since midday: a couple dozen people were gathered to drink and make merry. Few cared to notice his presence, and for that he was grateful. \n\nOnly a serving girl approached him, where he sat alone on a wooden chair the same dusty color as his sun-soaked robes. After the girl brought him the food and drink he had requested, she tarried near his table.<<set $girl to true>>\n\n[img[gas][38]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">@@.talk;Then what's the point of traveling so much?@@\n\n@@.talk;To leave@@, he said. @@.talk;Not to go anywhere. Just to leave.@@\n\nShe wrinkled her nose and turned away. He left an extra coin for her and returned to his room, exhausted with the feverish life of the tavern. Too many bodies in a warm sweaty place. The people down there would fill perhaps two wagons, if they needed to travel a far distance. One wagon, if they could be sold in the next town and would not have the time to become soaked with each other's sweat and fleas. \n\nHe breathed slowly, but he could not convince his mind that the clink of coin and cup was not that of chains. He could smell the fearful stench of the wagons around him, and against closed eyelids the sunlight flickered through the cloth flaps. He rolled over and pushed his head into the thin pillow.\n\nEnough. He needed to sleep.\n\n[img[gas][dreams]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">@@.talk;Were you robbed?@@ she asked.\n\n@@.talk;No.@@\n\n@@.talk;Where are you traveling?@@\n\n@@.talk;Where would you recommend?@@\n\nShe laughed, the little leaves in her eyes trembling in the breeze. Of course he knew that she had never left this town. He prayed she never would. She shook her head and left to fetch drinks for other tables. When she returned with more for him, she pressed again, this time asking about past journeys.\n\n@@.talk;I don't remember places very well@@, he confessed.\n\n@@.talk;Are they all the same?@@\n\nHe nodded. @@.talk;They're all the same.@@\n\n[img[gas][36]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He had a pathetic throwing arm, so he had not bothered to grab the throwing zdi when he left the caravan. Nor did he have much skill in stealth, despite his successful escape thus far. His approach was half-hearted, a waddling crouch that the bird should have instantly noticed. But it did not, seemingly preoccupied by the rare prospect of its own meal. He came within a body's length of it, still shuffling on his heels. Did he dare <span id="lunge"><<link "lunge for it">><<replace "#bird">>He lunged, and the bird spiked off the ground in a panicked flutter. It landed a few arm's lengths away, feet scurrying even before they touched ground. He tried to scuttle forward on his stomach to catch it, but the bird fled immediately out of sight. He earned nothing more than the wind knocked out of him and a face full of gritty dust. With a sigh, he staggered to his feet and beat off some of the dust before resuming his slow march east.\n\n[img[gas][11]]<</replace>><<replace "#wait">>wait a moment<</replace>><</link>></span> or should he <span id="wait"><<link "wait a moment">><<replace "#bird">>He held a moment, softening his breath, before he crept near enough to the creature to see its feathers quiver. It pecked beneath the bramble, tail fathers fanning out in counterbalance. Below the drab top coat of feathers, he glimpsed a white underbelly. The bird seemed to rest above the ground, so light that its talons hardly depressed the sand beneath them. \n\nThe bird jolted upright, wings flitting in excitement. He saw a dark, skinny something in the bird's beak before it hopped over the bramble with its prize. It sped away homeward, never looking back -- oblivious, he hoped, to the fact that there was ever any chance of death. \n\nHe sat down in the sand next to the bramble, eyeing it for some time before he reached out and tugged on it. It stayed rooted, but sand shifted around it, dislodging... nothing. Would he have eaten a worm or beetle if it had scuttled out? He wiped his face and returned to his feet.\n\n[img[gas][11]]<</replace>><<replace "#lunge">>lunge for it<</replace>><</link>></span> before he closed the final distance?\n\n<span id="bird"></span>\n\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">After they had finished speaking, the traveler stood still a moment, appraising him. Then they asked, @@.talk;Are you blessed or cursed?@@\n\n@@.talk;Neither, I pray.@@\n\nHe supposed those were the only two paths through the desert for such a wretch as he appeared. The pack-beast stamped at the sand underfoot. The traveler stroked its neck and murmured to it, likely sharing its contempt for his answer. But the traveler did not press; they bowed their head and gave a farewell blessing.\n\n@@.talk;And to you@@, he replied. @@.talk;May there be all mercies.@@\n\nHe did not tarry to watch the traveler leave. He had his own path, and no beast to bear his burdens. As before, he paused for dinner and then walked until drowsiness, the wisps of dhan smoke his only company. \n\n[img[gas][27]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">He would reach the town soon, he reasoned. He could spare some water. He poured enough down his arms to melt the powder away; it leaked down the hill in pale ashen rivulets. Neither his gloves nor hands were clean enough to address the wounds. He picked away any obvious pebbles wedged in the cuts and left the rest to the gods.\n\nSo he arrived in town some hours later, stinking of sweat and bile, his robes clawed up and filthy. Little prickles of blood lined his arms like a child's war paint. Even with all this, he thought, the town must have received worse than him before. <<set $healed to false>>\n\n[img[gas][unhealed tavern]]\n</div></div>\n

He knew the smell and the sickness in his bones and the senility of his heart. The all-consuming presence. He felt swallowed. The man bore down on him like a thousand years of sand sweeping across his body, flaying off the skin, grinding down the bones, molding him into a fine polished husk, a stone the size of a fist, the size of a heart, the pit of the fruit he had been years ago.\n\nIn another dream he vomited the pit into his own <<linkappend "hands.">>\n\nHe marveled at the softness of it. <<timed 4s>>How time and spit had enameled it.<<next 4s>><<goto "40">><</timed>><</linkappend>>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">Tattered as he was, the townspeople regarded him with unkind yet unsurprised eyes. He convinced one to direct him to the tavern. Along the way, he found an old man watering his work-beasts. He beseeched the man for a bucket of the animals' water -- undrinkable as it might be, it would wash away the stones and sand and grit. When the old man agreed, he peeled off his gloves and used his bare hands to scrub at his wounds.\n\nThe old man stood by and watched with a hand shading his eyes. When the bucket was empty, the man took it back and regarded him again. Muddied water dripped off his red arms. \n\n@@.talk;Where have you come from?@@\n\n@@.talk;Nowhere.@@ He waved at the cliff. @@.talk;Through the desert.@@\n\n@@.talk;And you don't have a name either, I suppose.@@\n\n@@.talk;Not one worth sharing@@, he agreed.\n\n[img[gas][37]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text"><<if $tool2 is "a handful of gem-studded rings">><<goto "rings">><<else>><<goto "no rings">><<endif>>\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">She had not yet noticed him, her black glossy eyes fixed on the washcloth and basin. He preferred to leave it this way. He reclosed his eyes and listened to himself breathe. She brought the cloth again to his shoulder and down his arm. Wherever it touched, the wetness of the cloth bloomed bright inky spots across the nothingness of his vision. He watched the ink seep into the darkness, thin out, and dissipate, followed by the soft sound of the cloth submerged in the basin again.\n\nThe pain in his head thudded patiently, waiting for him to attempt to wake and sit up. He gave it no such satisfaction, and instead fell back into numb dreaming. Their hands. The shouting of guards and the silty sunlight glancing off the horses' tight flanks.\n\nThe next time he woke, he was alone. Night had cooled the room, and someone had left a blanket to cover him. He rose carefully, pain swarming in his head like black stormclouds. His savior had been kind enough not to dig through his belongings; his pack lay neatly by the door. He stumped across the room and grabbed it on his way into the hall.\n\nThe hall was short, straight, and bounded on either end by a doorway. One of the doors was wooden, but the other was formed of long strips of animal hide nailed to the clay frame. Passing through it would be quieter than opening the wooden door, so he fled that way.\n\n[img[gas][33]]\n</div></div>

<div id="wrapper"><div id="text">The leader stood up and directed her men half a day's travel backward, to an oasis they had passed. The other hunters protested, but she won them over by forcing them to take a breath of the stench of him. They hauled him up and headed that way. When he stumbled too many times, the hunters complained of having to drag him half-dead through the sand. \n\n@@.talk;So water him@@, she said. @@.talk;And feed him something small.@@\n\n@@.talk;Water him@@, grumbled the hunter holding his arm. He spoke in his own tongue, not hers. @@.talk;Feed him. Next she'll tell me to bathe you.@@\n\nShe did not. At the oasis, they all undressed themselves. Her skin was strangely fair for desert life. Freckles scattered across her arms like the last stranded regiment holding down the land. Her hair was a glossy yellow, dark where she dipped it into the water and wrung it out.\n\n@@.talk;Thank you@@, he said. The water ran like glass over his hands. Grime loosened into black clouds that drifted around his fingers. \n\nShe frowned. @@.talk;You've got a soft temper for an arsonist.@@ She braided her hair mechanically, squinted eyes still watching him. He kept his gaze on the oasis. When he flexed his fingers underwater, they revealed little strips of fawny brown where the sand and dust had washed away. He looked mottled, like some jungle beast, half shadow, half earth. He scrubbed his skin clean.\n\n[img[gas][51]]\n</div></div>