Ameri

Ameri moved to a small crate off to the side of the platform and pulled out some bandages and an earthen jar. He came back to Kaleb and began to apply a clear gel to Kaleb's wounds from the jar. The gel had a bitter smell and burned as it was applied causing Kaleb to wince in pain. A light steam seemed to come out of the wounds were the gel was applied.

"Sorry about that," Ameri said with a sympathetic smile. "This ointment comes from the fruit of the Mumbi tree that only grows in the oases of the desert. They say that it carries the healing power of the sun, but also its burning. It's actually quite hard to come by in most places. I have it because I harvest it myself!" He finished, his smile turning proud as he thumped his chest with a fist.

Kaleb felt hesitant to use that rare resource, especially since it seemed that Ameri had gone through some hardships to get it, based on the way he talked about obtaining the gel. But Kaleb didn't stop Ameri from applying it. He knew how bad his condition was and doubted how much longer he would last in the desert without that medical care.

"Thank you for this," Kaleb said through gritted teeth. "I will definitely find a way to pay you back in the future."

"Don't worry about it," Ameri said happily. "You can just give me a bigger cut of the Dune Trap once we sell it. Half of it is yours after all."

"Okay," Kaleb agreed in a tight voice, as Ameri continued to apply the burning ointment to his wounds.

They lapsed into silence for a time until Ameri had covered both the gash on Kaleb's leg and the severe scrapes on his left side with the gel. The bitter smell of the gel permeated the air as the steam carried its aroma.

"Sooo, Kaleb," Ameri broke the silence as he began to wrap bandages around the still steaming wounds. "What were you doing being chased through the desert by a baby Dune Trap? No offense but it seems like you aren't equipped to be here at all." He said looking at the remnants of Kaleb's odd clothes and burnt skin.

His lack of supplies could be explained by losing them in the chase with the Dune Trap. The tatters of a silk shirt and dress shoes that were made for anything but utility, on the other hand, seemed to show a overall lack of preparation for one of the harsher environments that there were. Though Ameri had never seen clothing like this before he could tell that it was not made for desert travel. Just Kaleb's burnt skin was enough proof of that.

Kaleb froze, he had not thought at all about what he would tell people about his predicament. He had only been on this planet for less than a day and he had been jumping from one problem to the next. He couldn't just tell Ameri that he was from another planet and was pulled through a rift.

Or maybe he could, maybe that was the most normal thing in the world for this place of magic. After all, Rackshar had known about other worlds and knew how to open a rift, and Kaleb's dragon blood had to have reached his world somehow, right? The problem was Kaleb didn't know whether he would be seen as crazy or as a threat because he was from another world. He was sure he should at least keep dragons out of it, as Rackshar had said that they were hated by humans.

"That was a baby Dune Trap?" Kaleb asked, quickly deciding that shifting the subject off his origins was the best course of action at the moment.

Ameri's face lit up with excitement, and Kaleb felt a sense of relief, as he explained with enthusiasm. "That's right! You see, full grown Dune Traps mouths alone are the size of dunes, even dragons are scared of them," Kaleb heard Rackshar snort in his head, "and they live for centuries without moving. So, since there are so few of them, they only produce offspring once every couple hundred years. But when they do lay eggs they lay thousands of them so the desert will be crawling with baby Dune Traps for a few years."

"So you built this whole trap specifically to catch them?" Kaleb asked thoughtfully. The trap seemed quite intricate not only in design but in the labor it would have taken to build it. Yet it also seemed like a trap that could only work on one type of creature, the baby Dune Trap. Though, Kaleb had to admit that he didn't know near enough about the creatures of this world to say that with certainty. Either way it seemed like the effort wasn't worth the end result.

"Yeah! This trap is finally my chance!" Ameri jumped to his feet, after he finished wrapping the final bandage. "Baby Dune Traps may not be very high level, but every one of them is born with a grade 2 earth core to be able to move through the desert sand. Also their carapace can be sold to the armor smiths and their teeth to the black smiths. And low level hunters find it hard to hunt them because it's hard to pierce through their armor while they are underground and mid level hunters don't think it's worth it to hunt a creature that is so spread out when there is easier prey for them. So that raises the price of a Dune Trap!"

Ameri raised his fist in the air, his excitement reaching a whole new level. "If I can sell a few then I will finally be able to buy a magic sword and some potions and learn how to form a magic core myself and then I will become the greatest adventurer of all time!" He proclaimed with excitement and conviction on his face, as if he was declaring it to the heavens themselves.