I stared at the beast, silently contemplating the origin of the person. Whoever could make this beast scared was a person we should have nothing to do with.
Quinn, on the other hand, was quite adamant on finding and killing the person. You could feel the killing intent that he was releasing, and I knew he was serious.
"Monkey, who is their leader?" Quinn furiously asked.
"Hey, human, you need to calm down. You don't let your emotion dictate your action," the beast tried to calm him down.
"Tell me, who is he?" he asked again, only this time facing the beast, ready to strangle it.
"Oi, guys, aren't you going to stop him?"
"Stop talking shit. You said you would provide us intel," Quinn shouted.
"You are mixing this thing up. I said I would give you intel about the castle, not about a local street gang," it rephrased what Quinn had just said.
"But, if you truly want to know then ask them, not me," it grinned, pointing in the direction of the thieves.
It seems the beast doesn't want to tell us anything else apart from the castle, but it gave us another alternative: asking the captive.
I signaled to Edward, telling him to calm Quinn down, while I ask the captive.
As of late, I have been noticing some strange occurrences happening to us. For instance, I have been acting on impulse mostly without thinking it through, while for the others, Mark seems to be more confident, Edward looks to be acting normal — a little too normal — and Quinn has been alternating between furious, hot-headed, and sometimes joyful. It might be me being paranoid, but I think this desert has started affecting us.
If I am guessing, if we stay here any longer, well, we might change. Maybe to be like these guys or something else.
I looked at the captive and I could see the fear they had when they saw the earlier outburst.
"Who sent you?" I smiled, trying to ease their fear.
"We...we..."
"Who sent you?!" Quinn shouted from the back.
"We were not actually sent by the leader but the second in command, Lord Darok from the eastern side," they fearfully answered.
"How did you know our location? And why did you steal from us?" I asked another question.
"We don't know. We were just sent here by Lord Darok, informing us that humans will be in this area and we should take anything we can find," Mrake, the male gnome, answered truthfully.
Well, there was no way to ascertain the integrity of the claim, but as of now, we could still believe them.
'It seems there is more to this place.'
"What do we do with them?" Mark asked.
When the captive heard that question, they were fearful and hurriedly said, "Kind Sir and Ma'am, since we have answered your question you could let us free and we won't speak of this to anyone."
They smiled weakly as they said that, hoping their words could reach our hearts. But no one was a fool. If they were in our position they would have killed us by now.
"We will kill them, of course," Quinn interjected.
Nobody questioned his opinion, since that was what was on everyone's minds. But no one had the courage to say it aloud.
"Please... please don't kill us. We would provide intel about Lord Darok and the leader," they hurriedly said.
Unfortunately for them, Quinn didn't listen. He brought out a sword — the one stolen from the centaur — and used it to behead them.
He then swung the sword, removing the blood from the surface. There was no emotion in his eyes. I was very sure this wasn't his first time killing someone that looked almost like a human.
Now, after killing the gnomes, did we start to think about the consequences of our actions.
"Won't the Darok be aware of us killing the gnomes?" Mark asked after thinking hard about it.
There was no way to be sure, so we opted to be cautious. We burnt down the corpses. Even if it might be cruel, it was better to be safe than sorry.
"What are we still doing? Let's take our stuff and get out of here!" Quinn commanded.
We picked our stuff and started our journey back to our original route.
The whole day was spent tracking down the thieves and retracing our steps to the original route. We set our camp as the night was before us.
None of us could sleep due to one reason or the other. The days we spent in the desert were tougher than what we expected.
'What really is this place?' I thought.
That thought just came into my mind as I stared at the visage of the castle.
I glanced at Peter, hoping he would wake up sooner. I just knew things are going to get a lot harder from now on.
"The sooner we leave this place, the better it is for us."
I had an inkling that the more we stay in this forsaken realm, the more we would end up like those beasts. There was no way to prove my theory, but I have a feeling that it might be true.
The fifth day finally came and we began our journey to the castle.
No words were spoken between anyone. There was just pure silence as we moved, battling the gruesome heat and the intense wind.
This day was different from any other day due to one reason: a sandstorm. The wind raged across every area as far as our eyes could see, bringing about sand.
The winds were blowing sands, just like how a blizzard is — but instead of snow, it was sand. This made walking through the desert more difficult.
We couldn't see through the storm, so we had two options: either to stay put or keep moving.
Staying was the more logical answer because it was safer, but it still poses a risk of being buried under the sand. And the next option was the most dangerous, but also the quickest.
If we keep moving, we could get to the castle, but there was also a risk of getting lost under the storm.
'The answer depends on him. Which would he choose?' I said as I stared at the backside of Quinn.