Rising Shards

As we adjusted to our new setting, we had a few moments to spare as Dr. Diast, Caya, and Mahina were prepping our way of moving forward after making sure our adaptive gear was set to our new locale, giving us clothes that were more rustic and ready for a hot sandy locale. I scanned the sandy landscape in front of me, holding my hand around my belt, hovering around my bloodsaber.

“A deep desert, stretching endless as the sands around it reflect on time passing here eternally, this here land was probably all water and life before like the time turned it all to waste or something,” I said, nodding. “Yep, ‘The Kid’ definitely do still got it when it comes to narration ‘bout the big picture of them there deserts.”

“The who now?” Lillia asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Buckshot Leaf and the Kid! They’re our wild west cowgirl alter egos.” I said. “We did a lot of time prepping for whenever we’d get to go to a desert-y place in the void.”

“Zeta’s The Kid, I’m Buckshot Leaf, it’s perfect!” Oka said.

Lillia sighed. “Right.”

“Yep…” I nodded again. The Kid nodded a lot, I felt that fit her tough as nails character. That, and spitting into the sand, but my mouth was really dry and there were lots of people around, so I didn’t wanna spit at the moment. “Real tough gang of cowgirls here—ACK!” I yelped and fell over into the sand.

“You OK there, The Kid?” Oka asked.

“I thought I saw a scorpion,” I said. “But it was just a scary tiny cactus…”

“Right, right,” Oka said. “I’m thinkin’ we need the third member of this here cowgirl trio.”

“Does Kalei have a cowgirl persona too?” Marmalade asked.

“Uh huh, she’s Wheelbarrow Revolver.” I said.

Oka reached into her backpack, holding out two dark blue bottles like they were her outlaw guns.

“Buckshot Leaf always makes sure to remember to bring sunscreen for the whole gang.” Oka said. “Two whole dang bottles worth.”

Buckshot Leaf passed around the sunscreen bottles, making sure we all got a suitable amount of the lotion.

“Does Buckshot Leaf always talk in third person?” Marmalade asked.

“Buckshot Leaf…” Oka squinted. “Isn’t entirely certain about that.”

“I want to join in on this and I’m more than a bit disappointed I haven’t been invited to come up with my own cowgirl persona.” Lillia said.

“Well, you can now,” Oka said. “What kind of cowgirl name do you want to have?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I am certain ‘chaotic’ will be my cowgirl outlaw self’s nickname.” Lillia said.

“Do you want one, Marmalade?” I asked.

Marmalade looked around, then pointed to herself. “Do I…get to have one?”

“Uh, why wouldn’t you?” Oka asked.

“I’m…not used to being included in something like this,” Marmalade said. “Well, included in person. I got lots of friends online.”

Dr. Diast sighed as she looked through a pair of binoculars.

“Ah. Terrific.” Diast said.

It took Caya and Mahina just a brief glance to seemingly understand what was going on where Diast was searching in the distance in the dunes. I squinted, wondering if she saw a giant scorpion.

“Is there something over there?” I asked. “Is it a scorpion?”

Diast gave me her binoculars. “Look over by that kinda curvy dune.”

“They’re all kinda curvy.” I said.

“By the one with the…it’s got a thing…looks like a pole maybe.” Diast said.

Under a tall pole, with large group of vaguely humanoid void monsters pacing about. They looked like a group of Laenies all in Exa Cani form as I observed them more.

“They look serious…” I said.

“Check that guy to the left of the pole.” Diast said. “And the way the others are walking.”

One of them was just falling into the sand over and over. The others were walking either in straight lines back and forth or loops around the area.

“Now what kind of void thing has dumb patterns like that?” Diast asked.

“Retention sprites.” I said. “Right?”

“Yeppers,” Diast said. “They’re like memory copies of…ugh, it’s gonna take a while to explain.”

We all instinctively paused, then realized the immediate absence of Kalei as the lack of a snarky response to Diast’s teaching hung in the air. As everyone got a turn with the binoculars, Diast did her best to quickly go over what we were looking at.

“When a lot of wannabe losers decide they want to try and take over the void, for some reason they get it in their heads that the best way to do that is to create a bunch of retention sprites of a long dead army, in this case these goofuses. There’s like a bajillion Endoran groups so it’s hard to keep track of names, but if they have prim and proper dark blue military gear like that with the bright yellow line on their backs, they’re one of the bigger ones in the void.”

“Order of Terina?” I asked.

“Nah, the Terina freaks were more our side of things.” Diast said. “Like non-void. These guys are the Sharai. They did a real number on the void a long time ago, to put it bluntly. This place houses a lot of their ruins, actually.”