The Trap's Trap

"Nan ci! Nan ci!" the young voice continued to shout as the figure, wearing a cloak and what seemed to be a turban like wrapping over their head and face, waved its arms franticly.

'It's telling you to go over there.' Rakshar told Kaleb 'But it looks like a human so I wouldn't trust it.'

'Like I have any choice.' Kaleb thought huffing as he checked over his shoulder again to see the Dune Trap closing the distance. 'You can understand them?' Kaleb asked as he began a staggering run up the dune toward the beckoning figure.

'Humans may be worthless beasts but my dragonborn used their language.'

'Then I'm going to need you to do some translation for me, looks like you might be useful after all.'

'Ha! I can do more then be some middle man between animals! Just give me a little time to concentrate.' Rackshar replied, his voice full of arrogance.

Kaleb chose to ignore him as he reached the top of the dune and saw the retreating figure running toward a rectangular wooden platform. The platform almost looked like a dock coming out of the sand, a dozen meters away on the spine of the dune.

The platform was held a meter off the ground by some wooden logs driven into the sand, along its side. It was quite narrow and long and seemed to have something that looked almost like a fence running down the middle of it. The fence like construct was several thick poles sticking out of the platform and each pole was topped with a heavy looking boulder.

The person climbed onto the platform as they shouted back to Kaleb, "Bui mu an enmuck!"

Kaleb didn't need Rackshar to translate as the person leaned down and held out their hand to help Kaleb up. He hoped this person had a plan because he could hear the Dune Trap's scraping movement behind him as he grabbed the hand to be pulled onto the platform. Kaleb's savior fell backward onto the platform as they dragged Kaleb up using all their weight.

The Dune Trap shot beneath the platform, carried by its own ridiculous momentum, just as Kaleb rolled to safety. The cloaked figure lunged to the side and quickly sawed through a rope tied up there. As the rope snapped free the fence down the middle of the platform plummeted into the ground with such impact that Kaleb was almost knocked back off the platform. The boulders smashing into the wooden planks so violently that they splintered.

A terrible screech followed that impact and ended as suddenly as it had begun. Kaleb was stunned as he realized what had just happened. He looked over the edge to see the tail of the Dune Trap that had surfaced in its death throes. Kaleb then leaned over the edge to look under the platform, he saw the poles of the fence stabbed into the ground, and a thick dark purple liquid bubbling up from their impact points.

'This platform is a trap that killed the Dune Trap almost instantly.' he thought surprised at its ingenuity. 'Maybe there's more to this world than just magic.' Kaleb pondered, as he had been under the impression that most worlds that had magic would lean on it like a crutch that would cripple its scientific or technological advancement. Though most of these assumptions came from video games and other works of fiction.

"Are you alright?" a worried voice asked from behind him.

Kaleb straightened quickly and looked behind him to stare at his savior, who had pulled their face wrapping down to reveal a young man no more than 14 with dark skin and bright yellow eyes. He was only 140 cm tall and Kaleb would have thought he was middle eastern if it wasn't for those strange eyes. His face was defined from what must have been a life of hard work, but still seemed to have a bit of boyishness to it, and his eyes seemed to radiate a certain energy of youth and excitement.

Though right now the young man wore a concerned expression, seeing Kaleb's battered condition. What had Kaleb staring, on the other hand, was that the kid who had been using a language that Kaleb had never heard before, just a moment ago, had spoken in perfect English with a slightly odd accent.

'No need to be surprised.' Rackshar said smugly in Kaleb's head, 'I told you I could take care of this. Wanting me to be a measly translator, what a waste of my greatness.'

'How did you do it?' Kaleb asked genuinely impressed with the Dragon for once.

'It was simple, all I needed to do was tweak the imput of your hearing to change the language you hear to something your brain could comprehend.'

"We need to stop this bleeding right away", the young man said as he approached Kaleb, his face had become even more concerned with Kaleb's lack of response to his inquiry. He assumed that Kaleb had fallen into a state of shock.

'You can answer him' Rackshar told Kaleb, 'I also altered the touch sensory of your tongue to change your output to their language.'

'That doesn't work like that', Kaleb thought to himself, as he felt there was something off about what Rackshar had just told him. He could comprehend how the translation part might work, as an alteration of what he was already hearing but to change his touch sensory wouldn't alter the movement of his tongue to create different sounds. It also seemed to contradict what Rackshar had said he could and couldn't do inside of Kaleb's brain.

Kaleb's was forced to put those thoughts on hold as the young man grabbed his arm and guided him to sit down. He then took out a water skin and held it to Kaleb's mouth. Kaleb's eyes lit up and he drank deeply and immediately choked on the water that he so desperately needed, after his day spent in the desert. After his coughing fit ended he took another drink from the skin, but slowly this time.

"Thank you, you saved my life" Kaleb said simply, "my name is Kaleb, what's yours?"

"Kaleb? That's a funny name. Nice to meet you, my name is Ameri" The young man replied as his face lit up in an excited smile that seemed to be the his natural expression.