On their travels through the desert barely anyone interacted with the rock.
After all, it was a strange creature and a Warrior to boot. On top of that, being constantly shadowed by at least two members of the CorpseBrigade did not really make the rock more approachable. Not even for other Warriors.
At least that was true for the first half a year or so.
During this time, the rock helped with the tribe’s close proximity defence. More out of boredom than actual necessity.
Almost all other elementals encountered this way could be persuaded to leave in peace. Oftentimes all it took was a small payment of energy. And the rock happily paid the price.
Aside from this unpaid service it kept training with the other seven elementals, and mainly interacted with three of the tens of thousands of tribesmen.
The first was Waji, the Mind-Mage, they invaded each other’s minds and had long technical talks about different theories on souls and how the mind of different kinds of creatures worked.
They also experimented their abilities on each other, bringing the theoretical talks to practical use.
The second was Vebjik, the Destructor, they started by exchanging written texts made of ice. Mostly idle chatter. And proceeded by crafting words made out of different elements.
The most mesmerizing letters they were able to craft, were those made out of light. Yet neither of the two was able to craft understandable sentences from fog or gaseous elements.
The third was Ertzu, Arbiter to the Council. Their communication was mediated by a certain god, sealed in a gem, hidden deep within the desert-sands. While both prayed to Merafinger, the sealed god informed them about whatever they intended to impart on each other.
The contents of these mediated discussions were mostly friendly talks, with the occasional political discourse.
However, this changed when a few children felt pity for the lonely rock and invited it to join them in their games.
Not understanding what the children wanted, the rock conjured some water, light and wind to create a beautiful light show. Unexpectedly the children did not just look at the scenery but instead enjoyed running through the falling droplets of water.
Understanding at least this much the rock, increased the amount of water and decreased the amount of wind, which was manipulating the waters.
Most of the onlookers calmed down after the initial shock, seeing how the children played with the foreign Warrior. Doing so in close proximity to the creepy members of CorpseBrigade had many citizens worry for the children's mental health.
But others did not enjoy the show, and either left or snatched a child they knew to drag it off.
Many a time the children came to play with the rock’s water. Over the time incidents of children being dragged off gradually decreased, but never fully stopped.
The topic even reached the council. Some civilians were afraid of the ways the strange rock influenced the reality of the tribes' future generation.
Some of the councillors strung an argument together, claiming that teaching the children about an abundance of water would be detrimental to their development. But aside from propaganda circling through the tribe nothing happened.
Some less concerned parents even amassed enough courage to approach the rock and thank it for its interactions with the children.
Not understanding what the humanoids wanted, the rock created symbols on the sand-body, used as its exterior. Telling the tribesmen that a mediator was necessary for communication. Either they found a mind-mage, a destructor or prayed to a god called Merafinger.
Even the few who ended up praying to the god increased Merafinger’s stress levels to such an extent that the god implored its only priest to develop its priestly abilities until it became able to receive prayers directly.
At the end of the first year, the rock had managed to do what its god demanded, with a substantial amount of help from both the god itself and a few tribesmen, and became able to communicate with everyone regardless of their abilities and willingness to pray.
But remembering how it felt to have someone talk directly into its mind from random non-gods, the rock still asked permission before engaging in mind-to-mind-communication.
Some of those few tribesmen who interacted with the rock on a more regular basis grew bold enough to ask the rock for a shower, similar to how it created water for the children. Most times the rock happily obliged. The adults oftentimes did not feel comfortable doing it in public, so instead, they invited the rock into their homes.
In the few cases, in which the rock felt magnanimous. It instead gave them a nice hot or cold bath, whichever the humanoids preferred.
This magnanimity did not discriminate age or gender. Every single candidate was equally likely to get the bath-treatment.
One time as the rock gave a shared bath to Ertzu and Vebjik, they brought up the topic of the rock's services.
“You know, as much as I love being emerged in these waters, there are certain problems with this practice! Because most of the Warriors use this service of yours, it widens the existing rift between us and the rest of the tribe.” the female Arbiter, informed the rock about the situation.
“That is bad news but a lot more Soldiers ask for this treatment, compared to how many Warriors do so! In fact, Warriors make up such a small part of your population I don't even know why they are such a big topic. Anyways, we talked about this topic at length and I think I will never understand it. I have to admit that barely any civilians come to me, but still, those few that do are greater in number than your Warrior-population! How come the focus remains on the Warriors when both more Soldiers and more civilians are using this service?” the rock asked, not fully understanding where the problem stemmed from.
“Being close to the CorpseBrigade does not make anyone more trustworthy! Sadly the opposite is true. They may be our elite soldiers, but in the eyes of the civilians, they are even more grotesque than us Warriors are! You being close to a majority of Warriors and a majority of CorpseBrigade, makes the other Soldiers seem like the oddity. Even though the Soldiers make up the majority of your ... how do they say? ... Customers?” the Destructor presented the sad truth.
“Besides the other problem is way more substantial. Oftentimes this water-treatment leads to major arguments in the Soldiers' families. The reason for this should be nothing new to you: Being in this water is very pleasing.” Ertzu added on to her husband's explanation.
“As pleasing and relaxing as submerging your body in the sand after a long training-session!” the rock agreed knowingly.
“No, as pleasing as sex!” not knowing whether to laugh or cry had to disagree with the rock's faulty conclusion.
“Surely you jest!” the rock was unable to believe the news.
“So, you did not know?! A tragedy, really.” Vebjik concluded, wishing they had talked about this a lot earlier.
“Anyways I wanted you to be aware of it and thought you should know of the issues this service of yours leads creates!” Ertzu informed the rock why she brought the topic up, trying to conclude the discussion.
“How does that even work, there is nothing special to this water!” the agitated rock was unable to accept this news as facts.
“Except that it is floating in the air and someone adjusts it however way we want it!” slowly starting to think this situation hilarious Ertzu pointed out differences from normal water without knowing what about this water was so stimulating.
“Did you never think it weird how all the people moan and squirm or how the makeup of the water changes?” confused about the rocks ignorance, the destructor presented indicators, which should have given it an idea about the situation.
“I don’t know if you noticed, but I have neither eyes nor ears, and can therefore neither see nor hear. Creatures are always dirty. And becoming clean means that the water will take hold of the dirt. So I just assumed the organic additives in the water were dirt.” after presenting these arguments realisation hit the rock and it asked the two of them: “Wait, then why are the two of you using it?”
“It is relaxing and new! I am slowly beginning to understand how the nation-dwellers develop all their weird fetishes.” Vebjik joked.
His wife reacting with a shocked glare ended the discussion.
This revelation had the rock remember a few of its dilemmas. Being confined in the body of a rock, being a celibate, not having seen its companions for so long, and not having been with her for the same amount of time. The rock began to wonder how she was doing and what her relation to the new government was.
These ruminations lasted a few days.
But even thereafter the situation was constantly on the rock's mind.
Thus, during the next few baths, the rock experimented around. But no matter what it tried, it never felt any kind of sexual arousal.
This fact crushed the rocks spirit and ruined its mood, so much so that the rock did not give a single bath for multiple days. Everyone asking for its services got a simple and short shower.
The thing that improved the rock’s mood was when the tribe ran into another tribe. Well, this event did not really improve its mood in the literal sense, but it took its mind off from not being able to feel arousal.
At first, it looked like peaceful coexistence could be achievable via negotiations. So each tribe sent one of their Arbiters to deal with this chore.
Not counting on the negotiation to go well, both tribes had stationed their military arsenal between the tribes’ civilians. The civilians, on the other hand, prepared to evacuate at a moment’s notice.
The other tribe had a numerical advantage but the tribe with the rock had a major advantage in quality.
At some point, the negotiations began to stagnate, as the topic shifted to who would be the one to move their tribe out of the way. Neither wanted to budge on this.
As was customary with stagnating negotiations, one of the two negotiators started to misbehave.
Customs also dictated that misbehaving negotiators were useless. Thus, when the negotiators started going at each other with unproductive accusations and threats, an explosion occurred in the space the two occupied.
With the death of the negotiators, the fight began.
The fight was split into three separate sections.
On the right side the 17 warriors, and a rock with an entourage of seven elementals, faced off against five squads, totalling to about a hundred Soldiers. The probability was high that the warriors would easily win, but in these kinds of fights, nothing was ever certain.
On the left side, five squads faced off against five squads of the opposing tribe. Making this side the most probable to outlast the battle.
In the central confrontation, 19 squads of the rock’s temporary home were facing off against 25 of the other tribe’s squads. Giving the opponent a clear advantage.
However true this may be in theory reality proved to be different.
As eleven Martials took up defensive stances and prepared for the enemy to act, one Healer waited for someone to get hurt or for some enemies to come close enough, enabling her to use her offensive capabilities with limited reach. The other six warriors proceeded to attack.
A lone Martial Knight was rushing across the field.
Three Mind-Mages were trying to snipe the enemy officers.
A Destructor was shooting laser beams at the opponent.
A rock was throwing massive boulders at the opposing formations.
Seven elementals were patiently waiting for their turn.
The two incoming attacks from the other side were blocked by the Martials. But the Warriors offensive activities did not show any effect either.
The three Mind-Mages remained alive but neither did they wake up nor did their intended targets show signs of discomfort.
After a few exchanges, the Martial Knight broke the defensive stance of one of the enemy formations and immediately made way for the Destructor to get to work.
Shortly after the barrier went down, a laser beam shot through the formation. But instead of extending et Infinitum, once it was in the middle of the formation the beam split up. Each of the newly formed beams of light shot in a different direction, maximising the damage dealt to the formation of Soldiers.
Of the 23 Soldiers making up the formation 15 got wounded, seven of which lethally. Yet, only five died on the spot, the other two fell into overdrive and started to rush at the Martial Knight.
The remaining 16 Soldiers got back into formation.
Seeing two enemies in overdrive, two Martials rushed forward to keep them off the back of the Knight. Planning to free the Knight up to continue destroying the enemy's defences.
Sensing that the second barrier was about to go down, the rock threw out a boulder.
The barrier broke and the boulder smashed twelve Soldiers into a paste. The remaining seven Soldiers of this second formation retreated a few steps and fell back into formation.
From under the boulder, six overdrive-Soldiers crawled out and aided their comrades in harassing the Martial Knight.
As more Martials were about to rush forward, hundreds of sand-creatures plopped into existence all around the Warriors, cutting them off from reinforcing the front-line.
This prompted the elementals to spring into action, autonomously attacking the sand-creatures with the intent to destroy.
The Healer was delegated to defensive measures, as she was ill-suited to fight against remote-controlled creatures without vitals.
The remaining nine Martials had a hard time defending against the sudden assault, forcing the rock and the Destructor to abandon the front-line and instead help with the defensive effort.
The assault team made up of one Knight and two Martials had their hands full fending off the eight overdrive-Soldiers. Continuously defending and waiting for the Soldiers to run out of energy.
As the enemy’s formations were no longer under threat, they shifted their efforts to offensive manoeuvres.
The one majorly decimated formation assaulted the three Martials in front of their face, while the other squads diverted their attention to the formation of Warriors.
The Destructor and the rock defended against the incoming attacks as best they could, but the Healer was still forced into working non-stop to keep the formation from grumbling.
As it got apparent that the sand-creatures were replaced whenever a few were destroyed, the elementals shifted their efforts to help defend against the Soldier’s assault. Partially by assaulting the Soldier’s formations.
As the Martials began to fall one by one, the assault suddenly stopped as the enemies retreated.
Using this happenstance the Healer immediately got to work, trying to prevent as many deaths as possible.
Shortly thereafter the three Mind-Mages woke up. Completely terrified by their experience they opted to stay on the floor for a few more seconds.
After the overdrive-Soldiers ran out of energy they fell dead and the Martial Knight dragged two corpses back to the Warriors’ formation.
Looking across the battlefield the reason for the enemy’s retreat became apparent.
Fawou, the genius of an officer, had commanded the left flank and was able to make short work of the enemy formations.
Having maintained an artificial stalemate to lure the enemy into using their reserves on the other side, she immediately sprung into action once the sand-creatures appeared.
The five squads under her control were able to destroy their enemy’s defences, opening them up to being butchered by the CorpseBrigade.
Then without losing any time she diverted her superior firepower towards the bulk of enemy forces. While the CorpseBrigade kept the 15 remaining overdrive-Soldiers busy.
The enemy leadership then quickly realised that even if the fight against the Warriors was victorious, it would never be enough to make a difference.
And although the central cluster of formations came under heavy pressure early on, once Fawou sprung into action, that pressure was quickly lifted.
The three mind-mages were lucky that instead of a sapient mind-defender they were up against a device powered by Iso-crystals. And so, once the enemy retreated and turned off their device, the Mages were set free again.
As a result of this event the Warriors of the tribe lost a lot of what little prestige they had left. Partially because they did not win against their adversary, but also because the rock, who was part of them was depicted as the sole reason why the tribe had even been there in the first place.
The public perception slowly shifted from ‘the rock being one of the warriors’ to ‘the warriors being the rock’s friends’. The few real friends still loyal to the Warriors were seen as victims of deception.
This circumstance was a blessing for most of the councillors, it would enable them to finally get rid of the warriors without any collateral damage. The only collateral which would be impossible to prevent was Ertzu, Arbiter to the Council and Wife of a Warrior. But nobody really cared about her anyway.
Fawou was publicly praised for her superior intellect and understanding of the battlefield. Many of the younger generations, not knowing of Officer Hazvi’s achievements, wanted her to replace him sooner rather than later.
It had been over ten years since Officer Hazvi last entered the battlefield. In this day and age, he was far removed from what the population perceived as an Officer. Doing politics and coaching the next generation of officers, he was the leader of CorpseBrigade only in name.
This CorpseBrigade of his gained three new members. Being too disfigured for normal squad-activities, they would have to be introduced to the secrets of the elite-squad.
Of the roughly five hundred Soldiers fielded that day, 26 died and another 63 were hurt.
The Warriors mourned the loss of six Martials.
But the biggest dent in the tribe’s military power was the one officer who died this day.
The tribe settled down for the mourning ceremony.
For multiple days the tribe would not move.
On the day of the battle, the dead were burned in one giant fire, fueled by the Soldier's abilities.
The Chief of Public Content and Welfare, Waef presented a speech.
“It is as it always is, always has been and always will be.
The weak fail to know their place and the strong have to pay the price.
In this glorious victory, Officer Loney sacrificed himself to showcase our might.
It may not feel right for me to know that our brave soldiers gave their lives while being too sorrowful to list off their names. I ask the forgiveness from their families and loved ones.
Not to forget our dear Warriors also lost some members, may this be a call to caution them. Personal might may be important on the battlefield, as the genius of our tribe so masterfully demonstrated, but it is only useful when combined with tactics and an understanding of the situation.
Today all of us mourn the death of friends and family.
As customary we will now enter the Time of Mourning.”
Until the tribe packed up to move on, nobody spoke a single word.
