Chapter 18: The Drowned Cultists
The Southern Thanalan desert is a place of contradictions—endless dunes that stretched like frozen waves, the air thick with the scent of sun-baked earth and something faintly metallic, like old blood left to dry under the sun. The caravan had been found weeks ago, its wreckage strewn across the sand, the wooden frames warped and bleached by the elements. But the strangest thing isn’t the wreckage itself—it is the sand.
Every night, spirals have formed near the site, delicate whorls that look like something has been dragged through the dunes with deliberate precision. No footprints lead to or from them. No tracks.
No disturbances. Just the spirals, perfect and eerie, as if the desert itself has decided to whisper secrets in a language only the wind can understand.
Qaelemont crouches at the edge of one of the spirals, his glowing fingers hovering just above the sand. The grains are cool to the touch, almost damp, though the desert air is bone-dry. He exhales slowly, his breath stirring the fine particles into delicate ripples. "This isn't natural erosion," he murmurs. "It's too precise. Too deliberate."