"Call that female dwarf over here and have her guide me!"
Shivana knew Halahar, of course. Some instinct even made her recoil from the woman.
But she needed her help now, so her tone was a little more civil. Otherwise, she would already have been shouting "fucking this" and "filthy vermin that."
Hubble Hall wanted to object. "We're Halflings!"
"What's the difference? I can't fucking see your legs either way!" Shivana slammed her axe handle into the ground. "Quit wasting my time. I've got somewhere to be!"
"Wait, calm down. That's the Great Desert!"
Arthur hurriedly tried to dissuade her.
"It's a legendary wasteland. Diseased beasts and ancient ruins fill the remnants of its past. You can count on your fingers the people who've reached the desert and returned safely. In the past few decades, only one adventuring party, called the [Minions of the Ebony Forest], has made it back out..."
"How do you know so much about it?" the others kept asking.
Arthur tapped the Holy Emblem on his breastplate as though the answer were obvious.
"One of our predecessors was in that party. The church is still troubled by our failure to recover Priest Falto's remains. His body was left behind in one of the ruins."
"I escaped from the Great Desert myself. You think I don't know what it looks like?" Shivana spat, then drew a deep breath. If anyone asked whether she wanted to return to that barren land, her answer would certainly be no.
Why had she led her tribe through a teleportation to the Twilight Forest? Hadn't it been to escape that place?
But could she really refuse to go back?
The answer to that was also no.
"I'll find him. If no one will guide me, I'll look on my own."
As she