Extra's Guide to Surviving a Dark Fantasy World-Chapter 46: Trade Caravan

Several hours passed, and once I made sure that both of them were sound asleep, I took out some of the leftover sandweaver corpses from my spatial storage. I then summoned the duskwraith and handed him the carcasses, who then proceeded to use Shroud and run off into the distance.

After that, I waited quietly, my mind focusing on two places at the same time.

It was almost the end of my shift when I saw some movement over the horizon, but I didn’t move. Instead, I waited, watching from two perspectives as the Duskwraith walked closer to me and handed me a bottle filled to the brim with some kind of transparent liquid.

"These will have to do," I muttered silently, carefully looking at the bottle and placing it carefully in my pocket alongside another bottle.

My work was done for tonight, and my shift was almost over, so I stood up from my seat, dismissed duskwraith, and began walking over to the tent.

The sun was already about to rise up, so I once again began taking out and setting up our cooking supplies, separating the legs from sandweaver corpses and began preparing our breakfast.

--

Finishing our breakfast, we used the direction of the sun to ensure our compass was working properly and set out once again, marching in through the desert.

Stormraven would alert us of any stronger beasts in the area, helping us to avoid them. We would occasionally come across a group of sandweavers, but unlike before, now it felt like a welcome occurrence. All in all, our journey since the last couple of days was pretty uneventful.

That was good; uneventful meant safe, meaning we didn’t have to fight against stronger beasts or murderous reflections.

Evening came before we even knew it, the sun was about to once again set in the distance and today’s journey was preparing to be as routine as the previous ones, when all of a sudden something on the horizon caught our eye.

"What is that?" Thanks to stormraven, I was the first one to notice it. Out in the distance, where it usually should have been dunes of sand, now existed a large group of humans riding on the back of some large horse-like beast, walking in a straight line traveling through the desert.

Both Tess and Aria paused, seeing my reaction.

"What is it? Another beast?" Tess asked.

I shook my head. "No, it seems like humans."

Hearing this, both Aria and Tess’s eyes became wide open.

"Are you sure they are humans?" Aria questioned, finally talking to me after all this time.

"They are, but... something feels off."

I asked Stormraven to dive down and take a closer look. Cloaked people with bodies covered in white dresses sat atop some tall, scaled beasts very similar to lizards. These lizards-like beats were further attached to carts that seemingly floated beside them, filled with barrels and chests. The entire caravan moved in a straight line as if piercing through the desert.

A trade caravan was the only way to describe it. But that further raised even more questions, the biggest being- Who in their right mind would dare barter goods in the heart of the Gleaming Wastes?

The caravan was moving away from my range of control, so I signaled Tess and Aria to hurry up.

At the same time, I asked Stormraven to dive in closer. He did as he was told, carefully landing on the top of the last cart and hiding at its side.

Inside, the faint murmur of voices drifted through the air. I nudged him to listen, hoping to catch any scraps of information that might prove useful.

The sounds were quiet, so it took me a while; even then, I was only able to hear snippets from the conversations, but what I heard was more than enough to set my thoughts racing.

"Those people are talking in ancient Khravaen," I informed Aria and Tess as we raced down a slope.

"Ancient Khravaen? Are you sure?" Aria asked, and I silently nodded.

Of course, I was certain. Thanks to Khaldrin’s will constantly clawing at my mind; I probably knew more about that language than anyone else in the entire alliance.

Hearing my answer, Aria slowed down her steps, eventually coming to a halt.

"What are you doing?" I asked as Tess and I stopped as well, "Hurry up, do you want them to get away?"

"There is no need," Aria spoke. "Those things aren’t humans. They are merely specters who roam the desert, not knowing that they are dead. They are incredibly rare and have been spotted by travelers only a couple of times."

"So they are useless given our current situation." Tess chimed in from the side.

Aria nodded and fell down on her knees. Perhaps that momentary surge of hope had been too much.

I understood that feeling, for a fleeting moment even I had hoped we were finally going to be rescued out of this hell hole.

Letting out a deep sigh, I was about to call stormraven back when suddenly, a thought struck my mind.

"You said those things don’t know they are dead. Do they also have memories from the time they were alive?" I asked Aria, a little bit of hope burning in the back of my head.

"Yes, it is generally believed so, even though the attempts at talking are often restricted due to their rarity and the Arcanist in the region not being fluent enough in ancient Khravaen." Her eyes suddenly widened as she also understood what I was trying to say.

"If they truly possessed their memories, wouldn’t they also know the desert well enough to guide us out of it?" I spoke up, finishing her thought.

"That is doable; I know some elementary Khravaen, so perhaps the communication might be possible." Aria further chimed in, her face lighting up a bit. "But we would need to be careful, though. The records of arcanists interacting with specters are far and few, so we can’t be certain if they might be hostile."