Ormak Vurien

It was a truth he had come to trust more than men, more than blades, more than gods. The sands shifted with falsehoods, whispers born of heat and mirage, but the water? The water told only what was. Even now, as the sun hovered low over the city’s golden walls, casting long shadows like reaching fingers, the pool at the heart of the oasis remained still. Pristine. Honest. No ripples but wind. No disturbance but footsteps. Ormak stood beneath a carved sandstone arch, one arm resting against a pillar worn smooth by time and sun. Around him, the gardens exhaled in colors, blush-pink flowers clinging to lattices, blue-flowered reeds swaying with lazy indifference. The air was thick with the scent of hot stone and wet earth, a perfume that belonged to this place alone.

So when the surface of the water shivered, just slightly, just once and he knew. His hand tightened against the stone. He shifted his weight without a word, his belts whispering in the quiet. The two guards at his flank watched him, waiting for a signal. He gave none. The oasis had its own language, and it had spoken to him.

And then he saw it.

Not in the water, but through it, a reflection breaking where none should. A shape, sliding across the mirrored surface like a shadow unbound. He turned toward it and caught only a glimpse: a figure slipping through the colonnade at the garden’s edge. Cloaked in desert fabric, just enough to blur shape and face. They weren’t fleeing. Ormak had seen flight. Had hunted it. He had watched people run with terror scrawled across their limbs like war paint. This was different. Purposeful. Measured. A knowing run, not to escape, but to reach something.

The Warden of the Oasis exhaled, slow and silent, like a man preparing to enter holy ground. His eyes narrowed. One gloved hand slid to the hilt of his scimitar, not to draw it, but to feel its weight, a promise made of steel. Boots silent against the stone path, his dreadlocks caught the heat breeze as he moved, his presence unmistakable. There was no alarm. No shouted command. The guards remained where they were, unused to seeing him move like this.

But the oasis had whispered something else today. The path curved, weaving through a garden of glowing flora, lichen blooming where it should not, pulsing faintly beneath shaded palms. Sacred blooms that the Prophet claimed marked divine attention. Ormak had once believed such things. Perhaps a part of him still did. But even faith had its limits. But faith in the waters he was sworn to protect drove him forward.

CraveU user darted past a row of glass bells strung between two pillars, silent as they passed, not even brushing the threads. His pace quickened, silent still, but no longer casual. The cloaked figure, just ahead, slipping between garden walls like a mirage with intent. His voice rang out across the quiet like thunder rolling over water, demanding answer.

“Stop now little sand snake... while you still have your legs.”