Hidden in the dark casted by the tall trees of the oasis, the warriors of Ir'Houwl struck without a sound, as three ants dug around in the sand, uncaring for the five suns currently looming overhead, a simple bolt of mana soared through the air, burrowed into the compound eye of one before exploding whilst still within, quickly bringing it down as its two fellows were also beset by attacks.
One ending up with its head sliced in two by a slash of mana, and another struck by a heavy javelin, before the ants could even properly die, unseen mana hands took hold of them and began dragging them away from the scene of massacre, to disappear into the pitch black oasis as all traces of their passage and death here were swiftly erased.
Corpses of the large insectoids piled up as the influx was allowing for more diverse usages of them, such as in rituals of putrefaction in an attempt to weaken the ambient life of this realm, at least in the nearby area, with as objectives allowing for the turning of corpses native to the realm into undeads as well as possibly the production of miasma amongst many other things.
Still, this was all a result of a rather successfully, ongoing massacre as either the ants failed to realise that their kin was getting slaughtered, which might give credence to the idea that they were all under the illusion of a mirage, or simply didn't care at all and somehow found that uselessly digging the sand around the oasis was fruitful or important enough to warrant such constant losses.
The elite mage discovered that their nest was a fair distance away as well, coming out here to gather glass just couldn't be time efficient especially considering that more glass should be created at all times approximately everywhere whenever a high number of suns manifested around the still one.
They even managed to capture a few of the ants alive, but since they had no mind peelers within their ranks, they could only learn little.
The state of affairs remained basically the same, and after two weeks since the mirages had first begun showing up, they simply disappeared and things were back to how they had been when they initially entered the realm.
When the mirages ceased, so did the constant stream of ants, not even one showed up after that, returning to their normal habits.
"I thought the ants would eventually be compelled to attack, but nothing happened… But how likely is it to be a coincidence that they just decided to start mindlessly digging directly within the perimeters of the oasis, perfectly positioned for us to strike them down?" Ir'Houwl felt like she and her troops were like an animal that didn't realise it was getting poked repeatedly as whatever did the poking tried to get a particular reaction.
Ever since she had witnessed the pale blue sun and with its eye gazing around in interest, she strongly suspected that the still sun in general had a mind and agenda of its own, if she assumed that the 'regular' still sun and pale blue sun were both perfectly conscious, then the mirages and luring of ants might have been a deliberate act from the regular sun, or perhaps a third sun that just looked the same, as it seemed weird that this potent ability to cast mirages that could even ensnare the undead wouldn't have been used when they didn't even have a camp to hide from sunlight.
She had first thought the sun to be a hazard that would constantly train down an incinerating heat that prevented swift exploration and movements of her troops, but the addition of more different forms of some kind, and the fact that it was very probably perfectly aware of what it was doing and was even taking direct actions against them was much more troubling.
How many different appearances could it take on? What would be the different abilities that it would demonstrate?
The regular one seemed to only fill the desert with intense temperature and sometimes cast down rays of focused light in random directions.
The pale blue one was much more expressive and seemed to have minions that it could grant special powers to through special pieces of equipment..
And possibly a third one identical to the first in looks that was capable of manifesting incredible mirages and even catching whatever stepping into sunlight into an incredibly realistic illusion.
So far, the pale blue sun had been the one with the better environment, during its time, the temperature would go down and stay at that level until it went away, although its warriors had proven that they could pose problems, it was with this one that progress seemed to be easier to accomplish.
Now, she just needed to see if more would show up.
Although, now that things were back to how they had been, the scouts went out again, their starting point further from what it had once been, their mission was still mostly the same, although they were now actively tasked with finding good spots and areas for new camps to be created, small expeditions could now be put together as well as they had discovered the feeding grounds of various creatures of the desert, including the mantis-clawed creatures that had cut off a scout's arms.
They were hunted down at every occasion the desert presented, whenever the amount of sun was deemed low enough, the a few elites would take a small group of soldiers to go out and slay as many of these beasts as possible.
Also, the sight of sandwhale rousing up sand out of their blowholes was becoming more common now, their habits were similar to that of regular whales, as they just swam through the sand with their mouth open, filtrering out the sand and only devouring the small critters that could be found hiding amidst the grains.
These beasts were also hunted down, although at a much lesser extent as they were rarer and didn't move in groups, also due to the fact that dragging their corpses back to the oasis was time consuming, meaning that only one to be hunted at most before the warriors ran the risk of being caught in dire heat.
A few whale cadavers had to be abandoned and brought back later due to this.
After the mantis-clawed creatures took the hint and left the area they had previously occupied, a camp was built upon it, forming a small oasis.
Still however, no signs of cities or sapient life, only the minions of the pale blue sun, and the sun itself most probably, had been found that had great intellect.
'This might take a while…'