The Farlander, the Warrior, the Sorceror, and the Lamp

The Nakul desert--that vast, arid, sun-scorched expanse of sand and bone--seemed even to smoke in the scorching winds of the deserts as dervishes whirled into the air, as if to attack the three travelers. But they seemed completely unconcerned by the winds, marching ever on through the burning expanse, now descending towards what had once been a river--now run dry by the heat. They were an unusual group, for more reasons than one, but most plainly because they were traveling with nothing but that which they could carry upon their backs. Anyone watching them would have laughed, or, more likely, given them the widest berth possible. The Nakul had a murderous reputation, and the very heat in the air seemed to suck up all the water from the water-skins of any who traveled through it, until anyone traveling through it found themselves stranded in the middle of a barren waste, sentenced by fate to die a death not to be surpassed in agony. Anyone who didn't bring a ridiculous amount of water with them while traveling through here was either crazy, unbelievably poor, foolishly cocky, simply foolish, or a combination of the four. And no one wanted one's water--or life, for that matter--stolen by some desert madman who'd been too stupid to bring any water with them. But these men were neither crazy nor stupid...far from it, in fact.

The three were an odd group, as I have said, and the description is well placed; only two of them were Human. The third was a creature not of this world, but mortal all the same. The first one in their train was tall, and surprisingly young...seventeen at the greatest. He wore a white hood and cloak over himself to shield him from the scorching rays of the sun, and his bright, green eyes seemed to shine out from under his hood like beacons. The second had blood-red hair, spiked and wild, and red triangular tattoos all over his face and arms. His eyes were a savage yellow, and his body remained uncovered. His clothing was black as pitch, with golden stars and symbols adorning it, and he walked with a staff and blade in each hand. All around him in the air, a great number of whirling...things...seemed to stay as close to him as they could, seemingly immaterial. The third was not human at all...in fact, he was just as far from it as anyone could go. He had six legs, each with a sandaled, insectoid stilt to serve as a foot, and four arms, each of which was armed with a wickedly clawed hand. His eyes were like those of a serpent, and his head was adorned with a pair of curled antlers, and a long trunk, adorned with two long tusks, which ended in a large, toothsome set of mandibles. He wore plated, foreign armor, and carried a steel, hiltless sword in each hand. A long spear as strapped to his back as well, in between his two, leathery, batlike wings, and along the loops of a strange sort of pack he had strapped to back. He was by far the strangest of their group, for they had met him long ago--what now seemed to be millenia--in a far-away jungle, near the wreckage of what seemed to be some sort of iron house. They'd never seen the likes of such a building before, for it seemed to have had room for only three people at an absolute maximum, and was adorned with numerous different tubes that shot out pellets of steel, rays of energy, or jets of flame. The creature was apparently furious about his situation, and made this quite plain by cursing in some extremely bizarre dialect...at least, until he'd noticed he wasn't alone. Then, he'd suddenly started speaking to them, as if he'd always known how to speak their native tongue, and tried to explain himself. At first, they'd thought he was crazy. He claimed to have come "from another planet several star-systems away...approximately 5 million light-years from" his "homeworld, Carcarus". He claimed he'd been shot down by someone while scanning the planet for intelligent life, and had only survived because he was a good pilot. When he explained this, the two humans--the warrior and the sorceror--burst out laughing, thinking he was joking. And, after realizing they had no idea what he was talking about, he rolled his eyes, then told them that yes, he was joking, and had just come from a far-away land where people knew how to make metal ships that could sail in the air like boats sailed on water (common protocol for such a situation). Granted, the technology he'd salvaged from his "spacecraft" was much more complex and advanced then either human had ever dreamed technology could be, but from another world? Come on! That couldn't REALLY be true, could it?
As the trio descended to the refuge of the now semi-shady river-bed, the "Farlander", as the two had grown fond of calling him, proceded to press a button on one of his wrists.
Suddenly the pack on his back seemed to leap free of him, and then, proceeded to unfurl, until it had opened up into a large, sturdy sort of hut, complete with a cool, smooth floor of, as he called it, "inflatable-tile", that appeared to be made of thin plates of stone. Making sure that its base was tightly "auto-hammered" into the dry bed of the once-running river, he entered the small hut, and was followed in by both humans, who never ceased to be amazed by the spectacle of an instant shelter. The Farlander may have had a strange sense of humor, but he was obviously a...creature of fine living.

(Don't worry! More of this tale will be added on when I find time to add it! :D)