Week - 467 Spectre in the Night by kalnya

Description: It was her favourite time of the day, when the dying sun set the heavens ablaze and painted the sky red and gold.

Week - 736 Desert Requiem: Part One by kalnya

Description: She met the zombie who had saved her life sooner than she dared hoped. The meeting took place near sundown, atop the city walls.

Week - 737 Desert Requiem: Part Two by kalnya

Description: The Grand Hall of Sakhmet Palace, used to being the venue for important audiences, was to bear witness to an event of historic significance that day. Courtiers in their finery took up position on either side of the room, for once not engaging in idle chatter; their expressions were of rapt attention.

Week - 738 Desert Requiem: Part Three by kalnya

Description: Sayidah considered herself well-travelled for her age, but her experiences were but a speck of sand in the desert compared to Khalid's. He and Jazan had spent most of the last two centuries exploring new lands, only returning to Sakhmet every twenty years to ascertain the availability of princesses. Khalid narrated some of the adventures they had gone through, some which sounded so incredible that Sayidah would not have believed them had it been anyone else telling the tale.

Week - 739 Desert Requiem: Part Four by kalnya

Description: The Red Temple of Qasala was an impressive structure carved into the side of a sandstone cliff, and was one of the few monuments to escape major damage during the sandstorm of two hundred years ago. It was where the coronation of Qasala's rulers traditionally took place and housed the statues of the five founders of the city.

Week - 740 Desert Requiem: Part Five by kalnya

Description: Jazan, Nabile, Farisem, Sayidah, and Tomos filed into Jazan's study upon the premature end of the royal ball. Khalid made his appearance there shortly after them. He sat down in a corner of the room and did not meet anyone's gaze.

Week - 741 Desert Requiem: Part Six by kalnya

Description: The Temple of a Thousand Tombs was an extensive underground network of crypts that forked beneath large tracts of the desert, including Qasala. There were several entrances into it from the surface, including one that was located within the Palace of Qasala itself.

Week - 742 Desert Requiem: Part Seven by kalnya

Description: After passing the Ring of the Lost into the care of the Chief Royal Sorceror, Sayidah spotted Tomos, who stood uncomfortably off to the side, and Shasef, who still managed to remain in deep slumber despite the general uproar — both neglected as everyone focused on Jazan.

Week - 743 Desert Requiem: Part Eight by kalnya

Description: Defying his physician's instructions to remain in bed, Jazan summoned an emergency council as soon as he was alerted to the disappearances. Ambassador Farisem did not attend the meeting, citing indisposition.

Week - 744 Desert Requiem: Part Nine by kalnya

Description: Although Shiki had described Symerra as a city, in reality it was more of a ghost town. Many of the buildings were abandoned, and some lay in ruins. The population numbered in the mere hundreds. Shiki's grandmother, the mayoress of the city, explained that many Symerrans had perished in a plague three years prior, including her own son and daughter-in-law. But Symerra's decline began over two hundred years ago...

Week - 745 Desert Requiem: Part Ten by kalnya

Description: The day after Shasef had departed, Mayoress Lemida requested a private audience with Sayidah. "You should know that Master Shasef has been keeping secrets from you, Lady," she said grimly. "As grateful as I am to him for services rendered to the city, I feel that you should not be deceived."

Week - 746 Desert Requiem: Part Eleven by kalnya

Description: Once upon a time, he thought that there could be no greater tragedy than that of a city whose entire inhabitants had been transformed into freaks overnight. That was before he discovered the solitude of being the only one in the city who was a freak.