Eventually, the archer spotted the camp of the dead in the distance, and decided to stop shooting for now, their body was covered with a stuffy-looking suit that was covered in bits of sand, reminiscent of the assassin's cloak, but even more prominent and detailed, although not a true stealth specialist, the archer gave much credit to camouflage, shooting from great distances was their pride, and as such, even without actually being stealthy, such a garb would be effective over such great distances.
They simply needed to stop moving or get down on their stomach to seemingly vanish into the landscape.
Crouching down, both eyes squinted as they slightly leaned forward, inspecting the camp with an inquisitive look, having received orders to head over there and learn more about the cadavers that had suddenly manifested within the desert, the archer wasn't planning on getting any closer than this, especially after becoming well aware that the strange enemy could block their regular arrows with ease.
"Perhaps it would be best to just ignore them, no?" speaking aloud, voice muffled by a scarf that covered the lower portion of their face, the way the archer sounded made it no doubt that it was a woman speaking, and one that sounded rather youthful- Too youthful to be firing arrows at a bunch of moving corpses, in fact.
Although she had her own ideas about how to do things, the archer knew that it was Watchful Undeviginti that called the shots, if the pale blue sun wanted to know more, then the warriors that was sworn allegiance would need to gather information on Watchful Undeviginti's behalf.
She did not stare directly at the camp of any of the small figures she guessed to be carcasses capable of movement, knowing that some creatures could feel it when you looked directly at them, the archer did not know much about them, but would rather not risk it.
Which was why she decided to immediately augment herself with the pale blue vapour and shoot at them from a safe position instead of trying to engage them normally first, carefulness was the mother of long lives… Or so her own mother used to say about venturing out into the desert.
Considering that it was the desert that had come to them, it was hard to say if that advice held much meaning anymore.
Soon enough however, she, who was still augmented by the vapour, felt a most suspicious sound reach her ears, the sound of grains of sand scraping and falling upon the ground, it was subtle, it was quiet, but she heard it and the creepy slowness and deliberateness with which whatever had just risen out from the sand had gone about emerging, she knew that it wasn't a creature she was used to.
Beasts and monsters that hid beneath the sand were mostly ambush predators, if it was a non-dangerous creature, it wouldn't have moved until after she had left, so it had to be meaning business, but then, it would have leapt out and attacked with ferocity and swiftness, yet, it had yet to move, as though gauging whether she had noticed anything or not.
Acting perfectly nonchalantly, she suddenly twisted around and landed kick right upon the creature's neck, which was, as she feared, definitely not something she was used to dealing with, being some sort of small, hooded thing that had sand still seeping from its clothes as it was thrown away, she felt her kick not deal that much damage as the being just stayed limp and moved in the same direction the attack was going to push it in.
Harmlessly thrown away, the archer saw as the hood slightly raised, a corpse, a skeleton with deep marks of erosion plaguing its skull like deep scars.
She had not noticed that some of them were hiding underground, which was only natural, the sand scouts didn't need to emerge to speak with their fellows, so they just never did unless it was necessary or when they weren't on a scouting mission, not to mention that they already had scouts with birds and hounds, what sort of madmen would bring with them three whole different ways of doing the exact same thing?
As she struck that undead and her leg was still off the ground, more of them suddenly sprung up from their hiding spots, each wielding a small knife which edge was rendered bumpy and uneven by sand erosion, making them blades one would not want to get stabbed with at all, the sort of wounds they would leave most certainly hard to patch up.
But instead of rushing her down with their small stature, they spun their knives and held them by the blade's tip, throwing them at the archer, forcing her to pull back on her bow and shoot some down and evade the rest.
Naturally, it was the bow that was her decorated weapon, depicting the exact same image on the sides of its body as that of the hammer, sword and dagger used by her other fellows.
The little undeads burrowed back into the sand as soon as they threw their blades, then either reemerged to throw another, or new ones simply showed up, with their nearly matching get-up, the archer couldn't tell, she kept moving away, realising that they were all appearing in the same area before her, and for some reason, not trying to strike from the back.
That realisation came a moment to late as she turned her head to the side, a clear view toward the carriage that was approaching the camp, having been led to this particular area with no dunes standing directly in the line of sight, she instinctively tried to defend herself using her bow, naturally expecting for something to come flying this way as this had to have been the goal of the small corpses, who all scuttered away the instant she stepped in this position.
The archer did not see anything coming, but she did feel something scraping up against the bow she had risen in front of herself, a swift, shard-like object that was invisible to the naked eye was slightly diverted as it encountered the durable metal the bow was made of, and instead of piercing a hole straight through her heart, scrapped off a good chunk of flesh on the side of her chest.
Ripping apart part of her left ribs and leaving a wound gushing with blood in its wake.
WIthout hesitation, the archer threw herself away and retreated as far as was possible, even if she was already very far away from any undead apart from the sand scouts.
"Do not follow her, I got her mana signature from that… I can't tell whether she was lucky or unlucky to divert my spell" the elite mage spoke.
"Seemed like she was by herself" commented the elite swordsman, no one having come out to assist the archer.
"Let's report this immediately"