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The Barren Desert of the First Barbarian

In the times when the world was young and the kingdoms that have long since died were coming to power there was a land lush and full of life. So fertile was this land it was said every type of plant, flower, and fruit grew here. Many decided to settle here and eventually several towns came to exist throughout this land. Along with these settlements were groups of nomads that populated the area. One such tribe was a group of raiders who flitted from town to town terrorizing the citizens, stealing their good and wares. Eventually, word passed in hushed whispers between the towns; a magnificent prize for any who could rid them of the raiders would be deemed a king and unite the towns together in a single kingdom to rule over.    Word eventually reached the farm lands, and the farmer who tilled the lands farthest from the towns. He was a poor farmer with only a small cottage to house him and his family. His land was difficult to farm and indeed too fertile, he often lost his harvest to wild flowers that would invade his crop and animals looking for an easy meal. He wished for more in his life and saw the opportunity. He had known of the raiders, sometimes they would come to his home and camp in his land. They had never harassed him and respected him for his lifestyle in the wild lands,  He knew them well and knew he was not strong enough to conquer them, but perhaps he was clever enough to fool them.   The next time the tribe came to his land he beseeched them that there was a too much work to do on his farm and if a storm came before he was ready he and his family would surely die. The leader of the tribe offered there help in exchange for all the food left after the farmer fed his family. The farmer agreed and for several days put the tribe to exhausting work; fixing the damage in his cottage, building a storehouse for left over food, farming the land and keeping back the wilds. On the final day the farmer locked his wife and children inside the house and went out to the camp grounds with all the food and drink he could spare. The tribe accepted the gift jovially, not knowing the farmer had poisoned the food stuff. Hungry and thirsty from several hard days work the entirety of the tribe ate their fill, and the farmer quickly retreated to his home.   It quickly became clear something was wrong. The members of the tribe who had eaten the quickest were the first to drop to the ground dead, among them the tribe leader. Soon followed by the death of the young whose bodies were not hardened over the years and could take no such punishment. The tribe began to panic, and as there hearts began to beat faster the poison began to spread quicker. They all dropped one after another until only one remained. Lone stood a woman on the edge of adulthood, toughened by life so far that she did not drop with the children. Among the few who did not work, so she did not eat as ravenously. Alone she stood in a sea of bodies and as the poison quickly took hold of her a new clarity overcame her. She took the axe of her chief and fueled by the rage of betrayal, by the death of her fallen tribesmen she went on a rampage.    She came upon the farmers house and by the time she was finished there was only a pile of rubble, not a soul alive. Her rage did not end there, her rage continued for three days. She went from town to town taking out anything and everything in her path until not even a single structure stood, and all the people had either died or fled. Still the rage continued the plants and animals fell before her until nothing was left. Eventually even the earth gave way beneath her feet. Shattering from soil and rock into sand and dust. When her rage finally came to an end the land around her was barren and flooded with bodies and blood. The poison finally took hold of her and she sat in this desert surrounded by bodies of ally and enemy alike. She cried and with her tears gave birth to the bloody oasis in the barren desert, a place where no life could exist.

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