Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

THE SUN BEAT down fiercely on Ravenna. She had been walking for hours. She was now out of the city, trekking on to the south rather than the more familiar routes east that led to the Rhobine coasts, and the Cold Sea, and the golden gates of Titans Landing were a safe distance behind her. When she turned, the sparkled in the monsoon heat.

Her knees knocked together. But she didn't stop walking. Her royal emerald dress clung in sweats to her skin and her tits were freaking inflamed under the corset. But she thought only of certain wicked amber eyes. She blinked in the hazy horizon; saw sand and sand, and few bleak, brown mountains. She had already tossed off her Iridium veils a while back, but still, it felt like she had a furnace under her skin.

She was so hot she actually burned. Her lovely porcelain flesh: signature of the offspring of Angel she was.

Ravenna kept walking, even when her feet dragged rather than lifted. The sun wasn't just hot in this parts. It was evil. A giant ball of inferno, caking in fury the earth and its children. Ravenna's vision began to blur, and she saw mirages of clandestine people in the faroff dunes.

"Perhaps, I might just die here... Let coyotes or armadillo or fucking lizards have me. Death by sun. Ha! Hilarious!"

This was her, laughing under the intense heat. Still, she never once contemplated going back to the golden city. Just when she thought she might faint in her step. . .

Uooo! Uooo!

A great big shadow fell over her. She looked up.

Camels.

It was camels! Four of them. And when her blistery eyes lighted on those seated high up on the beasts, she finally dropped to the earth. Her last word before she collapsed to the burning desert earth was, "thank fuck." She was unconscious the second she went down, but strong arms wrapped around her small figure, enfolding her into a manly chest before her body hit the sands. The same gold-spun eyes that had kept Ravenna walking all those hours in the undern heat now stared down at her. The baritone came clear: "Little Raven."

Israfel had instantly jumped down from his camel the moment he spotted Ravenna stumbling her way in the desert. He currently said to Corazón and Naamah who were clambering down their camels too; not used to the terrain or means of travel, it took the girls a minute.

"Fecking Hel! How long has she been walking under this? Just look at her skin: red as berries. Thank the gods I had my [Hawkeye] influence on. We would've missed her." Rafel raised his head to hiss up at the sun. "If I had a vampire's shadow tongue, I would curse you to darkness. Gods! It's unrelenting."

"Yep." Cora eased a tired gaze around to the dunes, that went on and on, "this is the Badlands for sure."

Aya dipped into his side, adopting his crouch. "Is she okay?"

She stared down at Ravenna. Beneath the wide brim of her raffia hat, the same kind Cora had on to keep the infrared heat off her face, Aya's eyes were cool but cautious. Worry laced deep into the lilac orbs in the whites. She touched a soft hand to Ravenna's cheek.

"She will be." Rafel hardened, more to convince himself than the girls.

Then he immediately summoned and commanded his system to boot, charging her in a stern voice very reminiscent of a pirate ship captain to fetch a new ambiance. "Peitho, I need an oasis. Get me an oasis now. And yes, I am very much aware that we are in the middle of nowhere, thank you. Just do it!"n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

As if to aid his moment of deprivation, a scry of huge vultures began circling overhead. He threw a bark at them. "She's not dead yet dammit. Bald fuckers!" He cussed.

[Ding!], Peitho alerted him.

[As per Host's orders, I have conversed with the resident Survivors Shop in this here parts, the Bonelands sceptres, and an Epic-grade Oasis costs upwards of 15 000 survivor coins, Sire.]

[The said AMBIANCE POUCH is complete with temperature downers, radiator domes to keep off the heat, and necessary antidote for sun-bites.]

[Transaction in the Badlands is most times Trade by Barter. However, the current cash equivalent of Soul Coin to Survivor Coin is. . .]

[10 Soul Coins = 1 Survivor Coin]

[Host currently has an amalgamation of 160 million Soul Coins in his ARCANE RUNE. Other assets are calculable also.]

"So an oasis will cost me 150, 000." Rafel didn't want to enter into a debate on how a [soul's rate] could be less valued than the actual coin it took a person to survive in the first place. In his head, Soul Coins were supposed to cost a great deal more than anything. [Soul Fragments] did. What the hell was survivor coins anyway? Some ill-named currency of the Badlands?

It made sense, considering you'd very well need to survive this place.

Rafel adjusted his turban—which as compared to the girls raffia hats was quite suffocating—and gave Peitho his final response.

"I don't care how much it costs. Buy whatever you need to buy. Just get me that fucking oasis."

"Oh, and sunscreens while you're at it too, love," Cora added. She could not hear Peitho inside Rafel's head, but she assumed the system could hear her. Peitho did and replied in effect, that this [Ambiance Pouch] to be purchased came with all accessories to be needed by the Host.

[Ambiance Pouch: by definition, a sub-realm. A piece of para-physical dimension made to suit the needs of adventurers in any part of the Continent. If someone in stranded in the woods and needs a cabin to crash in, an AP does the job. Or caught in a snowstorm and desires to rest in a five-star luxury Inn, you get an AP and it's done. Obviously, these pouches are very expensive. Sometimes, even more than the real thing.]

[Ambiance Pouch can only be created by Supreme Magus or Magess, before being sold in the open market. It is often illegal in independent state-nations like Rocasus or Frostholm.]

Rafel barely waited five seconds before a slow rumble began under his feet. And out of thin air materialized the lushest fountain of streams he had ever seen. It was like someone had pulled the curtains to an invisible paradise. Out from nothing came this metaphysical Eden. The oasis took a plunge into surreal, transporting them from the scorching heat of the desert into the riverine temptations of tropical relaxation.

The ground grew tall, succulent Palm trees that waved in the wind. There were coconuts and bananas and papayas laid out in weave baskets around pure-white folding chairs, arranged in a crescent by the banks of the oasis itself. It was a small pool of water but crystal clean and deep enough for a luxury bath.

Then there was the accessories Peitho spoke about: sunscreens, and tan lotions, and towels and special reading glasses, and islandic delicacies, drinks sparkly like the kind only mermaids drank, small umbrellas in it, a wistful harp playing unattended in a corner, and many, many bathing robes.

"Fresh hell. No wonder it costs 150K." Cora said.

Rafel was too eye-lost in this fetching sub-realm which had manifested out of literal nothing to focus on his system deducting and calculating away from his [Arcane Rune]. Apparently he had lost something of half a million... but it was worth it. So worth it. And if he had heard Peitho's final alerting notifications correctly, he had a newest ranking, as such of the Badlands.

[Solitary Survivor]

It was the third rank from Novice. He could gain and pocket up to [150 Influence Power].

Thank the gods he was no fucking NUR. In lay terms, NUR were bottom feeders. Turd and farts in these furious lands of hardcore survivalists.

[Ding!]

[Ambiance Pouch successfully activated!] Find adventures on empire

Rafel quickly carried Ravenna to one of the white recliners, one under a Palm's evergreen frond, where she could have a good look of the oasis when she roused and popped the little cork on a vial of [Etheria Lacs]: the equivalent of an adrenaline shot in the Bonelands. Nice fucking name, if you asked him. Thirty seconds later, she opened her eyes. And they were just as green as he remembered.

"Little Raven." He cheered for her.

Ravenna blushed hotly. Three pairs of eyes were on her, perusing her dainty body in their own way for injury. She said, "Ugh, my head hurts." Then she took a quick gulp of her surrounding. "Wow. Is this some kind of hotel? Please tell me we're not back in Titans Landing. Please, please."

"Never. Those bastards locked me in a cage for seven moons." Rafel growled, the man and monster in him uniting for a brief moment.

It was Aya who touched his arm and softened his demeanor again. "No, dear," she replied Ravenna, "we are still in the wilderness. But this is a racy touch our man here spent no small coin on." They all laughed at this. Aya added, "I hear the correct term though is Your Majesty."

"Pfft." Ravenna blew disdainfully. "The Empire will have more sorry news tonight then, for their Queen," she made air quotes, "has run away. Anyway, fuck that city. Are we going to drink or what? Then you can tell me all about how to escaped Eragonn."

The four friends were skimpy and in the pool in second, frolicking in the warm oasis water. It was then, as they drank cool fruity umbrella-drinks and slurped from coconuts that Rafel told Ravenna about Yemaya and his glorious prison break; after which escaping into the portal with her to the other side, she had helped him change back to human again. Apparently, only an [SSS Rank] god like her had the [Divine Influence] to pull his soul from Black Death Behemoth, and morph the red, flaming Titan back to Hel's inferno.

A steaming, but human Israfel was recovered in the plutonic casts. Human enough.

"I'd wondered where Big Red went." Ravenna joked.

Rafel went laughing, and silence fell over the group as they just enjoyed the water. He must've dozed a bit but instantly whipped awake when he heard it.

Kraka! Kraka!

The unfolding of muskets.

Rafel opened one eye to the hollow barrel of a shotgun. Very old-fashioned. Dirt road type. The guy holding it jammed up to his temple wore a skull mask. Rafel only knew he was a man because of his smell. There were others too: around the pool, plucking his coconuts, checking out his recliner seats; dirtying his oasis with their sandstorm filth—the fuckers.

"Yo! Check this out." One dumbass fellow began rubbing a coconut husk between his legs.

"Skullriders. I've heard of them. Bandits of the Badlands. More like pigs!" Cora spat up the gun barrel at the lady bitch holding one up to her head. She pushed it deeper on her temple.

"Gimme a reason, cunt. I dare you."

"Enough." Rafel bellowed. "What do you want?"

The man with a musket to his head laughed long and hard, pouring a rain of smelly spittle onto Rafel's annoyed expression. He said in such a rancid, garish accent: "You see, fella, we were just passing on our way. Makin' our usual patrols... and we spot this fine deluge up in the sands. The fuckin' sands! See, up here, this is a castle, man. A frigging castle. And the way y'all talk, you gots the money. And WE LOVE MONEY."

His beaver eyes went round. "Well, that and water."

His mates gaggled like chickens.

"—so we'll be taking you beautiful folk. As much of this fine, fine place as we can. And your water too. Your lady friend was right about one thing: we are bandits of the Badlands. But you just wait til' you meet our Skullrider. There's only three of 'em. And ours would just love to meet y'all."