Swamped

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of town. Keep going until it's barely in sight.

"Honestly? Not in the camp at all. Not even the junkyard - we don't go there often, but after yesterday, it's clear that place is being watched. If you want privacy, take that wagon, ride out for an hour, and double-check to make sure nobody's around before you get to talking."

Rider reflects on this.

"Is the camp that prone to eavesdropping?"

"We've got pretty good hearing compared to you. We pick up a few things here and there without trying. I don't think we've got anybody who goes out of their way to listen in, not even Max's troublemaking kid, but sometimes a snippet of conversation catches somebody's interest and they can't help themselves."

You're feeling a bit self-conscious now. What if some greblings overheard your talk with Corvus last night?

Rider turns to you.

"Marshall, I would be putting you at great risk if I followed that advice. If someone were to attack us, I am not confident that I could protect you."

Just what you needed. Another excuse for stalling.

"Are you prepared for that? Do you feel you can be responsible for your own safety?"

...Wait. He isn't just lecturing you. He's asking you, sincerely, if you're willing to take the risk.

Which, now that he's putting it that way... you aren't sure about that. You can still use your slicer, but you were hardly an expert even when you had two arms. And you've learned that you can use magic, but you don't really know much about it, and you're concerned about what might happen if you try.

At the same time. He's offering you answers that you've waited seven years for.

What will you tell him?

You came here for answers. You never thought it would be all that safe. You're ready.

Could you just like, have a conversation by writing on paper or something, and then destroy it afterwards?

For a moment, you consider having a conversation on paper instead. No risk of being overheard, and you could destroy the paper afterwards to avoid having a record.

But that just wouldn't work. Not for something like this. You've missed your father for seven years now - you don't think you could stay quiet on the subject for that long.

Besides. You already ran through the swamp to reach the Marsh Fortress and followed Rider to the desert. You've taken plenty of risks up to now as it is... and, for that matter, your friends have taken big risks on your behalf.

"I'm ready," you say.

"Very well, then. Jebediah, if it turns out either of us are needed, give a message to one of the sandy-mockers. They'll be able to find me."

Your heart starts pounding as Rider leads you to the wagon. This is finally it. You'll have to wait a while, it's true, but at last you can get some real answers about your father's disappearance.

"I would recommend you stay inside," Rider says, as he climbs up to the driver's seat. "We don't know if the... raiders will attack again."

He sounded like he was going to say something else. But you've got a lot of other things on your mind now. You sit down, and wait for the wagon to stop.

You may not have anything to do, but you've got enough anticipation to keep your mind busy anyways.

Suddenly, the wagon stops... but it seems far too early for a talk. You doubt the hour the priest recommended was entirely necessary, but it's barely been three minutes.

A minute passes, and you don't see or hear Rider at all. You're starting to get worried.

What should you do?

Make a bird noise

You wonder if Rider might be trying to avoid making noise. If so, and it's too dangerous to look outside, your best option is to give him a signal. One that sounds innocuous.

So you get up, head towards the front, and without opening the door, you let out a short "caw". He can probably figure out some way to signal you back.

Except... when you try to make the sound, nothing comes out. It's as if the noise vanished the moment it left your lips.

Then you feel an odd sensation. It almost seems to be coming from your missing arm.

Wait... this is a lot like what you felt when you tried to hone your ether senses earlier. It's not quite the same, but there are a lot of similarities...

Maybe it's different because someone is using magic. Which could explain the strange silence. For all you know, Rider could be shouting warnings at the top of his lungs that you can't hear.

So what should you do?

Peek out, try not to be seen

This seems bad. Try sneaking out. At least with no sound you only need to focus on not being seen.

Well. If there's no sound, you can't be heard either. That means you can focus on not being seen.

So, for a start, you open the door to the front, just enough to let you see if anyone's on the other side. When it becomes clear that there isn't, you open it the rest of the way.

You haven't actually been here before; this is just a small chamber at the front of the wagon, with a ladder leading up to the driver's seat.

A ladder.

Well, you'll just have to think about how to get down when you need to get down. For now, it's a vantage point. You climb up and carefully look around before poking anything more than your head out.

Rider is gone. You don't see anyone else up here, though. You'll need to try to get a better look around, without drawing the attention of whoever might be here. Too bad you don't have those long goggles with you, you're fairly sure you left those with Yvonne...

Wait. What's that in the seat?

a tool

You carefully lift yourself out to get a closer look, trying your best to stay behind the seat for cover.

Unfortunately, even after you pick the thing up, you still can't tell what it is. It's got a wooden handle, but the rest of it is an incomprehensible mess of metal. Almost like a claw or something. Maybe it's a tool the greblings use?

Suddenly, you feel the wagon shake. Carefully, you look down the side, and see Rider picking himself up.

And no one else. But something sure seems to be hitting him. Just as he gets to his feet, he gets knocked back, silently hitting the wagon and making it shake again.

An invisible foe? Well, you suppose that's not stranger than the complete lack of sound.

If you're lucky, you haven't been noticed yet. You might be able to surprise Rider's attacker with a good slicer toss, if you could just figure out where to aim it.

But how could you possibly do that?

does he look like an invisible assailant is attacking him, or is it more like some force that keeps pushing him backwards? If its the former, then there should be disturbances on the dirt and air where they are. If its the latter, well, have a look around you, around the entire horizon. Can you see anybody at all?

Footprints? Dust cloud? If no...Look at where Rider's being hit from.

You take another look down. There's sand everywhere, and sand scatters easily. An invisible assailant would leave a trail everywhere.

But that isn't what's happening. Instead, it looks like the sand is being scattered around in large waves. Rider isn't fighting someone off; he's being pushed back by strong winds, or something much like them.

Which means the attacker wouldn't even have to be nearby. You look off into the distance, still wishing you had those long goggles.

But you can still see a faint silhouette some ways off. You're pretty sure your slicer can go that far, but you haven't actually practiced a throw at this range. You don't think you could aim it accurately at all, even if you did get the necessary distance. Not to mention that whatever force is pushing Rider would probably interfere with your throw, as well.

So what can you do?

Drive the horses forward to get the wagon between Rider and the assailant.

What does Rider look like he's trying to do? Is he trying to approach the figure, or is he trying to get back on the wagon? You might be able to help him if its the latter.

As you struggle to think, your eyes suddenly turn to the desert horse's reins, sitting not far from you.

Well. You're not sure how it's going to work with one arm, but it seems worth a try. You sit down, grab the reins, and pull, trying your best to turn towards the figure in the distance.

It's a rough ride. You find yourself wishing you could strap yourself to the seat. And suddenly, it gets a lot rougher as you feel yourself being pushed back.

This must be the wind - no, the force - that Rider was getting struck by. They probably used it to knock him out of the seat. But in your case, it just seems to be pushing you further into the backrest. A bit uncomfortable, but with how much the seat's shaking, you think it might actually be helping you stay in.

It must be a matter of direction. They hit Rider from the side, and they're hitting you from the front.

But there's another problem. The force seems to get more intense the closer you get to the figure. You're not sure how long you can keep this up before you or the horse gives in under it.

Not that you have much choice about it at this point. You don't actually know how to stop a desert-horse.

What are you going to do?

Tactical retreat and get help. Get a proper horse trainer over here.

A Distraction! That's the ticket! Think of something nonsensical to shout, with all your might.
Like...
Uh...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

*THUMBS UP EMOJI*

You don't know how to stop a desert-horse, but Rider must. If you can get out of this seat, you might be able to get away and ask him for help.

Not that you're sure how, since everything's gone silent. But one thing at a time, first you need to get out.

For a start, you let go of the reins. It doesn't have much effect, since you're still being pressed into the back of the seat. But at least it lets you move your hand freely.

You try to push yourself to the side. This is not very easy when you only have one hand to use for support, but you do the best you can.

After a few minutes of awkward pushing, you finally get one of your legs past the seat - and it gets pushed back almost immediately. You scream silently under the strain, and do your best to get it in front of the seat again.

You've already lost one limb, you'd really like to keep the rest if you can.

So it seems getting out of the seat won't be easy. You were thinking you could try to duck behind it for cover and try to get down the ladder, but it seems you'll need a different approach.

Or maybe, since you're stuck here, you should instead focus on striking back at the caster somehow. It's hard to imagine your slicer could make it through this intense force, though. And what else could you do?

You could cast a spell.

The thought strikes suddenly, and it's chilling. The one time you cast a spell, you knocked yourself out. And it's not as if you've had any more practice since then.

But you might be out of other options.

What should you do?

Trying a full-on spell would probably have some bad consequences. What if you just tried using a bit of magic on your slicer, to let it push through the wind?

Maybe it would be best to think smaller. Healing Captain Long probably wasn't that simple, all things considered. So perhaps if you used a simpler spell with less ether, say, focusing some into your slicer to let it counter this force... that might work out. It's still risky, but you don't have a lot of options.

You grab your slicer, close your eyes, and concentrate. You can already tell there's a lot of ether around you, even if you can't see it that clearly.

So you pull just a small piece of it into your slicer. You feel the force acting on you getting just a bit weaker, too.

You don't think you need to do anything else - you empowered the slicer with the same spell that's pushing you back. So you think, or rather, feel as though it can just fly through. You'll still need to aim it manually, though. With more practice and more ether you might be able to make it seek a target on its own, but you'll stick with what you know for now.

Aiming proves tricky with this not-quite-wind pushing you back, but you think you can manage it. At least you've still got your glove.

You fling the slicer and you can feel it making progress, pushing forward, unaffected by the strange force, even as you get closer and feel yourself pushed back harder.

And then, suddenly -

THWACK!

The silence is finally broken with the sound of the slicer hitting its mark. You also hear a rather loud, sustained humming sound... but it starts to die down and fade away, and as it does, the force acting on you lifts.

Was the sound pushing you back? Perhaps Simone would have some idea of that. For now, you've got other concerns. You turn back and call out.

"How do I stop the horse?"

"Pull on the reins hard!" Rider calls back.

That makes sense, and perhaps if you hadn't been under such high pressure, you might have thought of it yourself. Unfortunately, you dropped the reins, and now you're having trouble just staying in the seat. You've only got one arm to hold on with, and the reins have fallen down quite a ways.

So what should you do?

Try pulling on the horse.

You don't think you can reach the reins from here. But you might be able to reach the desert-horse's hump.
You pull yourself down from the seat, trying to hold on as best as you can with just your legs, and reach out to the hump. Then you pull back as hard as you can.

Thankfully, the desert-horse seems to understand the signal, and slows to a stop. That gives Rider time to catch up, and help you down from your awkward position.

Up ahead, you see your assailant, sprawled on the ground. Rider wastes no time in rushing over and picking them up from the sand.

You can see now that it's a grebling wearing a bird mask and a cloak. Rider doesn't strain himself carrying them at all.

"Marshall," he says. "Do you notice anything odd about this mask?"

Why is he asking you? You're not an expert on bird masks.

Wait, but you do have ether senses. And you think they're acting up as you look at the mask.

But what could they be trying to tell you?