Runebound Reverse Tower of The Dead

Chapter 264: Deadly Gamble

The beacon loomed out of the sand like a black tooth, and the moment they reached its shade the world felt a fraction less murderous. Their boots stopped sinking as much. Their eyes stopped watering. Even the wind, still whispering grit into every seam of cloth, felt like it had lost some of its bite for a few breaths.

From that angle, the oasis was visible too. Not a dream, not a smear of heat on the horizon, but an actual line of darker green and the faint gleam of water catching what little light still survived under the bruised sky. It wasn’t close, but it wasn’t impossible either. An hour if you walked straight and didn’t fall apart. An hour if the sandstorm behind them wasn’t moving like a living wall.

The skinny young man stared at it like a starving animal watching meat behind glass. His throat bobbed once, and he looked back toward the storm, then back toward Kael like the answer was supposed to be printed on Kael’s chest.

"Do you guys think we should stay here?" the Skinny young man said, "Like the oasis is right there, we can make it..." he looked at the approaching storm and then at Kael, "I mean if you carry us, we’ll probably make it."

Christy’s eyes sharpened immediately, the kind of glare that had teeth behind it even when she wasn’t holding a blade. "You think that he’s your little pony or something?"

Kael didn’t snap back. He just rolled his shoulders once, feeling the ache catch in places that had been screaming a minute ago and were now quiet only because adrenaline had decided to be kind. His breath still tasted like sand, and his legs had that heavy, stretched sensation that came after you pushed past what they were meant to do.

"No need to make a fuss," Kael said, "I can’t carry you guys anymore, it’s taxing on me, my muscles are torn in many places and I need rest soon."

The skinny kid’s lips twisted, half disbelief and half offense, as if Kael had personally denied him water. "Then what was this grand plan of yours for rushing us here?" he asked.

’Rushing us here? Saying it like an accusation when I saved your ass...’

Kael didn’t answer the way they wanted. He didn’t explain the map, didn’t explain the worms, didn’t explain the math he kept doing in his head whenever people started dying around him. He just looked at the beacon, at the smooth curve of it, at the way the sand slid around its base like it refused to cling.

"You’ll just have to trust me," Kael approached the beacon, it was a giant obelisk sized structure. Though this one was circular, Kael placed a hand on it, and nodded.

He pressed his palm to the stone and felt the heat stored in it from the day, like the beacon had been drinking sunlight and hoarding it. The sandstorm was closing fast enough that the air itself had started to thicken, a faint roar building in the distance like a beast dragging its belly through the world.

"Doable," he said as he peered to the side of the beacon, the storm was coming in hot. At most ten more minutes.

The old man kept shifting his gaze between the oasis and the beacon, torn between thirst and fear. The face covered man didn’t pace or argue. He just watched Kael’s hands with the calm of someone who understood exactly what desperation made people attempt.

Kael reached into his inventory and pulled out the hammer. It wasn’t a normal tool. It had that wrongness to it, that quiet certainty of tower items, even when it looked simple in the hand. He planted his feet and struck the beacon.

Nothing. No crack. No chip. Not even a satisfying sound. Just a dull hit and the sting up his forearm.

"For fuck sake? Are you serious? You did all that to bring us here, only to start digging? And that’s a blacksmith’s hammer! You’ll take years to put a hole into that thing, fuck it, I’m out," he said as he got to the old man, "Give me my waterskin."

The old man flinched like the words were a slap. "What are you doing?" the old man asked.

"I’ll make a run for it, I’m fast, I can make it before the sandstorm hits. I’ll take cover in the water of the oasis."

"What about the monsters?" the Old man asked.

The skinny kid’s eyes flashed, quick and nervous, like he’d already decided that dying by worm was better than dying by sand. "Can’t you feel the vibrations? The sandstorm is making it impossible for those blind things to hunt. It’s my best chance."

Kael didn’t bother chasing him with logic. He struck the beacon again, still silent, still stubborn. The kid took that as permission. As approval. As proof that Kael was just guessing.

"You’ll die," the man with the cowl over his face said.

"I won’t, I told you I’m fast enough, I’ll get there, even if the sandstorm reaches me, I’ll be close enough to the oasis. Hand it over."

"Your funeral," the Old man said as he gave him his own waterskin.

The skinny young man didn’t even thank him. He snatched it like he’d earned it, then sprinted, kicking sand behind him and disappearing into the open like a stupid arrow fired into a storm. Without turning back, "Bunch of idiots, you’ll all die there."

Kael let out a breath that wasn’t quite a sigh and wasn’t quite laughter either. He watched the runner shrink, watched the storm line crawl closer, then turned his focus back to the beacon like it had personally insulted him.

He struck again.

"You don’t look too pleased with what’s going on," Christy said, her voice low, the way people speak when they don’t want panic to become contagious.

"He seems to have forgotten an important fact," Kael said as he struck another time, this time however, something different happened.

The stone didn’t fracture. It didn’t chip. It moved. It bent inward with a slow, ugly give, like metal forced under a press. The surface warped and held the deformation, the way a dent stays in steel after you hit it hard enough.

The old man’s mouth opened slightly. "What is that thing... that the kid forgot?" the Old man asked as he noticed the change to the structure.

Kael didn’t look at him. He just watched the deformation settle, calculating shape and volume with a builder’s instinct. "That he needs three people to finish this floor." Kael struck again, another deformity.

The old man’s head snapped toward the open desert. "KID COME BACK!" he howled.

The roar of the storm swallowed his voice whole. The runner was already too far, and the air was already filling with that low, constant grind that promised sand in every eye, every mouth, every wound.

"He won’t be able to hear you, and I doubt he’ll ever make it," the man with the cowl said.

"Why? At his speed he’ll make it more than halfway when the storm hits."

"That’s the issue, he’ll still have to go through a sandstorm, and somehow have to keep going in a straight line toward an oasis... the chances of that happening... are not that high."

The old man swallowed, and for the first time his confidence looked thin. "You seem to know a lot about deserts..."

"I do," the man with his face covered said, "I’m African. I used to live in a desert surrounded region." He said.

"I see," The Old man said, he realized that this man just became an invaluable asset to them with his desert knowledge.

Kael didn’t let the conversation distract him. He kept shaping the beacon, blow by blow, not trying to smash through it but forcing it to yield in controlled sections. The rectangular outline became clearer, the stone buckling inward along a frame he was carving with dents instead of cuts.

"Hmm, should be good enough," Kael said as he placed the hammer back in his inventory.

"What are you doing now?" Christy asked, and the edge in her tone sharpened as the first fingers of the sandstorm reached them. The air shifted. The light dimmed. The world began to hiss.

"Making a door," He said as he positioned himself, he crouched slightly, one arm tucked under his armpit, the other arm pointing at the structure with his index and middle fingers curved forward.

"Hyup!" Kael heaved and rotated his torso; his fist struck the beacon with enough force that sand blasted out from all around it.

Christy flinched hard, rushing in like she expected to find bone poking through. "What are you doing!" Christy panicked tried to take a look at Kael’s fist that struck stone. Nothing she expected was there, his gauntlet wasn’t warped nor were his fingers underneath it bleeding. "What are you doing? You have a hammer why are you punching rocks?"

"That hammer isn’t for destroying things, it’s only for shaping," Kael said as he stood upright.

The beacon looked unchanged at first glance. Like his punch had been swallowed by it. Like the structure had decided to ignore him out of spite.

"And you decided that your fist is sturdier than a hammer made of steel?"

"Because it is," Kael smiled as he pressed one finger on the warped deformity of the beacon.

The rectangle gave way all at once, collapsing inward with a dry, cracking crumble, like the beacon had finally admitted it had been hollow the whole time and was only waiting for the right kind of force to make the seam fail. Heat rolled out from the opening, stale and trapped, but it was still mercy compared to what the storm was about to do.

Inside the beacon a large circular area revealed itself, large enough for several people to get inside without risk of it being crowded.

"Get in," Kael said.

They didn’t argue. Even the old man moved fast, fear finally giving him legs. Christy limped in with tight jaw, and the face covered man slipped inside last, eyes still tracking the storm like he was measuring its appetite.

The air inside was thick, humid, and hot enough that it felt like breathing through a wet cloth. The beacon had been baking all day, and now it held that heat like a furnace holds coals. But the walls blocked the worst of the wind, and blocked the sand from stripping their skin away layer by layer.

Kael pulled the hammer again and began striking at the sides of the beacon, shaping the broken rectangle into a sturdier frame.

"Even if you make it sturdier," the man with the face cover said, "It’ll still let sand through..."

"I know, but we don’t have much choice," Kael replied, we’ll have to stay here for now.

The storm hit like a living thing throwing itself against the beacon. The world outside became a roar. Sand hammered the stone, found the opening, and still wormed its way inside in stubborn spirals. It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t safe. But it wasn’t the full mouth of the desert either.

All they needed to do was simply wait it out.

And wait is what they did.