As far as the eye could see there was only the yellow sand of the desert. Yet the sound of combat could be heard for quite some distance. The auditory stimuli consisted mainly of explosions and the lamentations voiced by humanoid combatants.

“What’s taking you so long? Siep?” a distinctly female voice came from a humanoid apparently struggling to try and punch a sandstorm.

The sandstorm reacted by spitting icicles at the source of the voice.

The icicles were blocked by invisible walls and exploded close to the bare skin of the female humanoid.

“It is as if the thing does not have a soul at all!” the male humanoid, that up to then had only been standing around, responded. The layman would have thought he was not doing anything. Any fighter would have identified him as a ‘mind-fucker’ by realizing that he was trying to mess with someone’s mind. Experts in the field of mind-magic could have even told of the fact that he was scanning the sandstorm for a soul.

“The fuck is that thing?” after intercepting five different projectiles of different elemental properties heading for herself and the humanoid named Siep, with smaller projectiles of the same elemental property the smallest of the humanoids and equally female as the first one, spoke up in a rather discourteous phrasing.

“Isn’t it a normal elemental?” a baritone voice came from within the sandstorm, missing any sense of tension. Shortly after the owner of said voice submitted their wisdom, a naked figure somersaulted out of the sandstorm and coughed out sand.

“Fucker, we can deal with elementals in minutes. This thing, on the other hand, is making us work for our money!” the petite female countered by summarising her accumulated experience.

“Huh? We are paid for this?” was the only thing the baritone martial could voice before being reprimanded from behind.

“Concentrate!” came the angry voice of a tired male, who was constantly trying to remotely repair the damages Mr Baritone brought upon himself while inhaling part of the sandstorm.

“Sorry, forgot to seal my mouth while speaking!” almost being inclined to smile awkwardly, he scratched that notion in favour of blocking a lightning bolt headed for his heart with an invisible barrier.

The last humanoid did not even have the leeway for idle chatter while controlling the six non-humanoid-non-sandstorm participants of this fight. five of these rockeaters were situated around the sandstorm. Neither of the five creatures was far from the sandstorm, while constantly sucking in its mass and avoiding attacks. The sixth one was searching for something in a wider circumference.

None of these people looked to have passed their prime, and all seemed to have successfully survived their adolescence. The skilfulness of their combat could have suggested a profound experience in life, but it did not seem to help them in this situation. Additionally, the lack of a wide frontline and the failure of the mind-mage increased the stress on the female destructor and the male healer.

After this exchange, the fight kept on for a few days. And while fatigue seeped into the bones of the humanoids, the amount of chatter decreased.

Whenever the small destructor counterattacked with projectiles of elemental property, the sandstorm changed. It partially ceased being a sandstorm to match the elemental property the humanoid had used for her attack. It never changed completely, only ever the spot that would be hit by an attack.

The two martials were equally successful in their offensive efforts. Maybe even less because the sandstorm did not even react to them. So, they were quickly delegated to defend the group from any attack that may come out of the sandstorm.

The healer was periodically feeding energy to the martials and the destructor while trying to stay in motion as good as he could. In an effort to make it harder on the sandstorm to hit him.

The mind-fucker was just continuously trying to find the soul of the group’s opponent, and the longer the fight went on the more desperation could be seen on his face.

The rockeaters were the most successful in forcing reactions from the sandstorm. Whenever they came close to the swirling mass of air and sand its angular velocity dropped significantly and it retreated away from the little predators.

All the while at least one of the small ones were assigned to searching duties. As more time went by it became clear that the humanoids were little more than dead weight for the rockeater’s effort.

The operator was coordinating the rockeaters, while also healing and buffing them. The healer supported the effort of keeping the rockeaters functional as best he could.

The fragile equilibrium broke when the baritone martial slipped up. Having slightly miscalculated the vector of the incoming metallic shard, it slipped off the minimalistic barrier over his heart and ripped his arm off.

Being forced to shift his attention, the healer gathered energy to regenerate the arm of Mr Baritone.

The elemental used this time to attack each of the rockeaters with a cascade of rocky spikes shooting out of the ground.

The operator coordinated the rockeaters to spread out, to minimalize damages. The martials lunged forward and chopped the spikes apart. The destructor stayed back to protect the healer and the mind-mage. And the mind-mage continued to be useless, or more precisely, started to become a real burden.

The elemental set off two additional cascades of spikes in the general direction of the bulk of enemy forces.

Staying back was the right decision, as the sandstorm redirected its attention to the healer and the destructor. Throwing a grand total of 27 projectiles of 27 different elemental properties at the two active combatants and the useless mind-mage.

Of the 27 projectiles, 26 were shot down by the destructor. The conscious decision of the small female was that it would rather deflect all projectiles heading to her colleagues and dodge the last one flying in her general direction.

This decision proofed fatal, as behind the first batch of projectiles a group of three, way smaller ones, was fired.

Being busy with dodging the destructor did not have the leeway to conjure more projectiles or barriers and had to dodge a second projectile, in short succession.

The two projectiles heading for the healer hit their target unimpeded. At this time, the baritone’s arm was already almost back to its full glory, as if the arm lying in the sand was a lie. Due to the way the healer moved one projectile shot right through his left ankle and the other through his right shoulder.

Lying on the sand and doing bareboned first aid on himself the healer saw that two of the rockeaters were out of commission. He did not see if they were completely destroyed or just physically wrecked. So, he scanned for signs of life around the areas the 2 shredded rockeaters were located at. Finding one dead, he initiated the healing process of the other.

In this manner the baritone’s slip up resulted in an overexerted, overfatigued, barely functional healer; one dead rockeater; one rockeater barely alive; and a massive advancement in finding the elemental’s core.

This massive offensive on the elemental’s side had only been possible due to the expense of horrendous amounts of energy. By doing so the rockeaters’ senses were able to triangulate the rough position of the sandstorm’s core. And per default, this information was fed directly to their operator's mind.

On the third day of combat one of the rockeaters finally found the core of the elemental buried deep in the ground.

“15, minus 65” the rockeater’s operator informed the group of the core’s location, raising their rock-bottom morale back to a healthy level.

Invading the core of the elemental left the body of the mind-mage completely exposed and motionless. The last thing that could be seen on his face was the desire to rip the target’s soul into tiny bits.

The team’s effort quickly shifted from protecting the rockeaters to protecting the mind-mage.

After multiple hours of navigating the strange soul, the humanoid found the mind of the sandstorm-creature.

By this time, however, Mr Healer was no longer for this world since he had been hit by a bolt of lightning. Even if he had survived, he would have likely bled out, because the wounds he had neglected to heal opened up again, as a direct consequence of the lightning.

Similarly, Mr Baritone had gone down when he was once again swallowed by the sandstorm and could not react in time. He was torn apart by sharp metal pieces, rays of water and shards of ice.

The mind-mage could briefly glimpse the creature’s intentions. Getting a good idea about what was going on outside he had to change his plans. Instead of flaying the elemental's soul layer from layer he simply forced the core to the surface.

An icicle made its way past the group's defensive periphery and was shooting directly for the mind mage's forehead.

The male made one last effort to prevent his death. He stabilised his soul for an out-of-body-experience, dislodged it from his body and sent it on the way to his secret lab. There his disciples could initiate the recreation of his body. He seemed practised in this action.

By the time the icicle hit, four rockeaters were already feasting on the elemental’s core, and the sandstorm ceased to exist. The fifth surviving rockeater lay in the sands, barely able to move.

The three remaining humanoids resisted the urge to fall asleep right there and then.

As the rockeaters brought the remains of the mysterious creature, a shiny rainbow-gem, to their operator they disappeared into thin air. In their place, three smaller humanoid creatures with disproportionally large carrying utensils came into existence.

Despite also having humanoid bodies, these creatures did not seem to belong to the same species as the bigger ones. Not only did they seem to be adult versions of their species despite their small height. Their bodies proportions and material makeup were completely different from the combatants.

As the three tall humanoids started to make their long and arduous way home, the small ones started to scurry about.

One of them collected the three bodies of their operator’s dead companions, and the one living but unmoving rockeater. While the other two started to dig into the sand and reveal ore and crystals lying underneath.

The body collecting one followed behind the combatants’ trail as its siblings started to mine.

As it came close enough that it could have touched its operator the three humanoid corpses vanished, as did the body of the rockeater. The creature immediately turned around, to accelerate the mining effort.

Whenever the small creatures were attacked, they were able to outrun whatever attacked them. Even while carrying a load of ore and crystals.

The mining creatures each filled their carrying capacity multiple times before they too disappeared, along with the last batch of crystals and ore they brought to their operator.

The three living humanoids were either too tired or too used to such events to shed tears. Their faces told of anger, pain, sadness, and loss, while they silently continued their walk for multiple hours.

The battles that ensued twice, ended much more quickly than the battle against the elemental.

The first battle’s opponent was a scorpion half the size of the humanoids. The stinger’s surprise attack bounced off of an invisible barrier shortly before penetrating the martial’s bare skin. Shortly thereafter it was sliced apart by the martial’s bare feet, as it tried to jump out of its hiding spot.

The second one was against a group of seven rockeaters, who rushed the humanoids when they felt disturbed during their meal. The three humanoids did not react and silently continued on their path. Shortly before the rockeaters were upon them. A rocky giant manifested close to its operator and swatted the rockeaters into non-existence. Soon after the giant also ceased to exist on this plane of existence. In its place, one of the small humanoids appeared and ran off to where the rockeaters came from.

The humanoid brought what seemed to be simple rocks back and upon entering the operator's sphere of control disappeared together with them.

As they came across an oasis, or a fountain as the locals called it, they finally got to rest their weary bodies. They lay down a good distance from the water and waited. While two were simultaneously resting the last one was paying attention to every sound and every smell that came to their attention.

At first, the guarding person changed frequently, so as to give each of the three travellers a moment to relax their minds. The resting ones meditated while being fed and hydrated by a creature similar to the small humanoids but less bulky and more dextrous in nature.

As time passed the guarding periods gradually grew longer, and the travellers grew visibly less weary and exhausted.

When she heard something approach, the guarding person, the operator, snapped her companions to attention. “Incoming!”

The small servanoid returned to its operator and disappeared.

The sound of multiple creatures moving fast approached as the three females stealthily watched their surroundings for the arriving strangers.