The nights in the Parthian Ancient Kingdom were bitterly cold.
Unlike the winters in the Narcissus Principality, where it always seemed to snow... this was a dry and lonely cold.
The howling wind was rarely heard. It was so quiet that one could almost hear the heartbeat of a Lizardman crawling through the sand. Moonlight spilled over the ground overhead, making the yellow sand look like silver frost.
Unlike during the day, sandstorms were uncommon at night.
According to the Parthians, this was because the wild Desert Spirit had finished its patrol for the day—those who disrespected the desert, wasted water, or failed to revere Parthian traditions sufficiently would be devoured in a fit of rage once discovered by the Desert Spirit.
If there was someone like that in a caravan, the entire caravan might even suffer for it. If there was such a blasphemer in a settlement outside a city, the whole village might be destroyed because of them. Only those who offered devotion to the benevolent lord and revered tradition could receive the Desert Spirit's protection and survive every sandstorm unscathed.
—Of course, based on Hassan's studies in the Mage Tower, this phenomenon should actually have been related to the heat brought by the sun. The sun continuously heated the surface of the sand to nearly eighty degrees. The air close to the ground was heated and rose, creating powerful thermal convection.
Another reason did indeed have something to do with the benevolent lord—the humidity in an oasis region could approach that of a coastal area. The humidity would then create temperature differences, which in turn produced considerable differences in air pressure. As for why sandstorms rarely occurred within Oasis City... it was because the oases near the city were relatively moist. The sand absorbed water and clung