It was surprising to see that the regular treasure hunters were almost as disciplined as the vanguard forces.
When after the mass prayer the next morning two dozens of caretakers in purple cloaks arrived, the crowd gathered in front of the rift gate, and patiently waited for their deity to arrive. Lee knew so religions worshiped their spiritual leaders as incarnations of gods, but it was the first ti he saw soone who was considered an actual God.
Lunax didn't make his devotees wait for too long. Like always, he appeared on the top of the rift gate, held a speech, and then the performance of him opening the rift followed. Clearly everyone was familiar with the procedure, because without further instructions or incidents the crowd flowed through the gate.
Treasure hunters weren't as effective as vanguard, and it took a longer ti for the sa amount of people to cross over, but the sight was impressive nevertheless.
The new thing, at least to Lee was that after several hundred people left, Lunax turned off the gate, took a pause while sitting on top of it as if ditating, and then opened another rift.
Before Lee began to ponder the implications, Thorax mused out loud, "Looks like we'll be in the third batch this ti. Let's see who'll be our competitors ..."
"No need to worry!" A well built man, covered in armor except for helm and hand guards, said, "We'll leave you so beasts for you to play with!"
Lee rembered him from yesterday – the guy was one of the people who offered him to join his squad.
He was one of the first who approached, and Lee was imdiately scared off by his flat nose and white fangs. The guy reminded him of the crazed bunch at the first blob farm – compared to them his big two devil-like companions seed completely harmless.
"Piss off, Slivax!" Arax hissed back, "Better watch it to not get cleaved on accident by my sword!"
"Hahaha! You're not the only one with a divine item here!" Slivax laughed back, and patted his chest. Apparently his armor was in so way special, "But I see you got brave all of the sudden after persuading the witch to join you. Why would you choose to help these two psychopaths? You know, you can still change your mind and co with our squad. We have over twenty people and ..."
"I said, piss off, Slivax!" Arax interrupted the attempt to poach Lee away, "Leaxa is with us!"
"Leaxa, huh?" Slivax said, "You're welco to join us any ti after the two will inevitably die. I promise you won't regret it! Stop staring at like that, Thorax! You know you two can't deal with our group! Alright pussies, it's our turn! Good luck!
Even though the n were bantering, they orderly proceeded towards the rift gate as the crowd moved on. Before stepping through each squad received a wooden box, big enough to fit a couple of shoes in.
Caretakers were giving them out, but only one at the ti.
When it was their turn, Arax said, "Master, this ti the big one for us, please!"
The caretaker glanced at him, then his sword and then Lee. Then nodded and gave Arax a box double the size the rest were getting.
"What a joke!" Lee heard Slivax say sowhere in front. He talked to one of his companions, but loud enough for everyone to hear, "They want to fill the large one with only three people! What a joke!"
"I think they don't know you have to store the sparks in there." His squad mber replied in a serious tone, but even louder, "I bet they thought we're going to pick fruits or sothing ..."
Lee could swear he could see the two brothers blush with anger and embarrassnt despite having a dark red skin by nature. Neither could do anything with the caretakers and the God present, and the trio stepped thought the rift along with the loudly laughing crowd.
The sensation of a hot air slamming in face was bearable, but the first breath Lee took made him feel his lungs were on fire.
The place was hotter than any sauna he had ever been to, but his two damned companions happily charged away the mont they arrived to the other side. From the looks of it their holand had similar climate to the Inferno Wastes and the two felt like fish finally getting back in the water.
Lee was not in a rush, though. He walked to the side and looked around, trying to figure out the safest way to spend the next two days. Indeed, the gathering expedition was supposed to last two days during which the treasure hunters had to gather as many sparks as they could.
The problem was, or rather – Lee's problem was, he didn't know the treasure hunters will be deployed in batches all around the Inferno Wastes, and that was the reason why Lunax opened and closed the rift gate. Each group had one caretaker overseeing them, but the guy remained next to the spot where the rift just closed, as if marking the location everyone had to return to.
Geographically it was decently located – they were on top of a hill, with a reasonably good view at the surrounding area. The problem was – the scorching sun didn't allow to see far. In addition, Lee already felt sweat getting in his eyes.
'This will be bad.' He though.
Compared to the chilly Ashland, this place carried a serious risk of dehydration.
And he couldn't see any water body nearby – there was no river nor lake. And not even a small puddle. But the rocky plain below had quite a few plants growing, even in this heat. Most were bushes with dark brown leaves, but between rocks there were also so trees battling their way through. That ant – there had to be so kind of water source, and if he didn't find one, Lee was certain he might die from a heatstroke.
The two devils didn't share his worries. They were already half way down the hill when they noticed that their so called witch wasn't following, and had to stop. The other treasure hunters rushed past them in all directions, with squads keeping together, and soon angry roars and shrieks of agony filled the air.
"What are you waiting for!" Arax shouted, not trying to hide anger in his voice.
To his understanding the two acquiring a witch provided them with a huge advantage, but they were already falling behind. Slivax's ridicule opened quite a few old emotional wounds, and he was eager to start cutting the local beasts down, no matter what they were.
"What are you stressed about?" Lee approached the two brothers in leisurely pace, "We have two days ti!"
"But we already lost the first wave!" Thorax argued.
For gathering conquests Lunax usually opened rifts in spots with relatively high beast density. Them not charging forth ant they didn't score the first kills, missing out on chances to find sparks.
"Do you know what the characteristics of the beasts are here?" Lee asked, "Are they poisonous? And are there any lava pools we might inadvertently fall in, or maybe quicksand? A couple of beasts we missed don't matter – we'll get a bigger ga! Be patient! Let's go!"
"See?" Arax imdiately berated his brother even though he was even angrier a mont ago, "I told you old witches are experienced!"
Thorax mumbled few words of apology, not understanding what went wrong with his earlier logic, and the two followed Lee who actually was completely stressed out.
Even though it was ten years ago, he rembered how Captain Freewon's crew was obliterated by several leoramuses. And those beasts in the size of a three story house were peaceful herbivores! If there were similar fire breathing monsters around here, he was in deep shit!
Fortunately, the start was not as bad. The treasure hunters were performing genocide on all living things, but the corpses Lee saw were ten to twelve feet long lizards. They were in the color of the rocks that were lying all over the place, and it didn't seem they were more dangerous compared to a regular crocodile.
"Do these things really have sparks?" Lee asked the two devils who could only shrug in return.
"We have to kill them to see, right?" Arax said.
"I think you asked for the wrong box." Lee said with a sigh.
The sparks were only in the size of a large plum and to fill that box ... well ... they probably needed to annihilate tens of thousands of these lizards, if not more.
Seeing his two companions beco downcast, he said, "Let's go! We'll think of sothing! I bet we can find bigger ga that actually have sparks!"
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