Once again, the sunlight stabbed painfully into Msaka's eyes as he came to, still sprawled on the sand where he had fallen. He blinked and lifted his head off of the ground, grunting as that movement provoked an even more uncomfortable throbbing from the back of his head. He closed his eyes and sighed, wondering what had caused his head to become such a popular target for airborne objects lately.

Pulling himself slowly up into a sitting position, he furrowed his brow at the stringent protest which doing so provoked from his skull. He lifted his hand to begin working his healing spell once again, but stopped short as he realized he was holding something. Cracking his eyes open, he peered down at the object and discovered that he was holding a folded up piece of paper.

He wondered where it had come from for only a split second before his headache reasserted itself as the most pressing concern. Slightly annoyed at the delay, he jammed the paper down into the sand in front of him, then began building the spell's energy, reflecting on the fact that this was one particular magic with which he was becoming all too familiar.

A couple of moments later, the spell having been completed and enacted with deft precision, he finally opened his eyes fully for the first moment since waking up. The pain was gone, at least, though it had been replaced by a faint nausea.

He glanced quickly around, worried that something hostile might be in the area. Fortunately, there wasn't, though there was a patch of sand nearby that seemed oddly scuffed, as if someone had been digging at the surface. Someone, he noted from the footprints nearby, that had approached from the direction whatever had hit him had come, walked over to both him and the disturbed ground, then walked away again to the west, along the cliffs. There was no sign of whatever had actually hit him, though, so it had either been some kind of magical projectile, or else his assailant had taken it along.

"Why knock me out and then walk away?" he wondered. "It certainly wasn't any thief who did this, or they'd have stolen everything I had and probably killed me as well." While his possessions still seemed to be on his person, he nonetheless shrugged off his backpack and searched through it and his pouch, concerned that something might have been pilfered while he was out - particularly the elemental.

Everything still seemed to be intact, however. Unable to think of any logical reason for what had happened, he put his backpack back on and started to rise, trying to decide whether heading further west to hide the elemental was still the best thing to do, considering that his attacker had gone that way as well. Still...

The paper! He glanced down at it, lying half buried in the sand, then knelt back down and plucked it out. Unfolding it carefully, he turned it about until the writing upon it was upright, though the odd diagram and seemingly random numbers scrawled in columns along it made no particular sense. In one corner though, was written a short message, obviously intended for him.

"My apologies, whomever you might be," the message ran. "Fortunately, the bank off of your head saved my shot from landing amongst the cliff rocks!"

Msaka closed his eyes and sighed again, feeling the headache starting to return. "Why did I have to come to this land which is filled with madmen?" he grumbled as he stood for the second time. Throwing the paper down, he stalked onward, wondering if the place called Silmaria that he intended to visit next would be any more... normal than this desert land had proven to be.

It didn't take long before he noted that he was approaching the site where those men had attacked him during a previous trip out into the desert. The bodies had long since been removed, of course, but his memory of the event was still crystal clear. He slowed his pace as he neared the crevice in the cliff face. It might make a good hiding place for his precious cargo - As long as no one decided to take shelter inside it, the elemental would be unlikely to be spotted, nor would there be much chance of it being accidentally trodden upon. Still, it would be best to bury it, he decided, just in case someone came searching...

Casting a long glance in all directions to assure himself that there was no one observing his actions, he slipped into the crevice and quickly dug a small hole in the sand in the back corner. Retrieving the waterskin from his pack, he carefully deposited it and pushed the sand back over it, smoothing out the excess to hide the fact that something had been buried beneath.

"That is that," he thought, stepping back out of the crevice. "Now I just need to wait until I leave to retrieve it." He turned back to the east, but delayed departing as he considered whether to place a warding rune over the entrance to the crevice. After a few seconds of deliberation, he decided against it; while it might offer a bit more security against desert creatures, it would also attract attention from any people who happened by, should they accidentally set off.

He set out again, heading a short distance back towards Shapier before stopping again. The spot he was in was sheltered behind a dune, and the cliff face looming over the area was fairly smooth. It would be best to leave some circumstantial evidence here, just in case anyone questioned his little side trip and decided to verify his story personally. Turning to face the cliff, he unleashed a small barrage of spells towards it and the sand below. Offensive spells and nondamaging spells alike washed over the area, leaving both obvious signs of their passage and a more subtle magical residue that could only be sensed with the most careful magical examination. To prevent that eventuality, he took even more time to enact the Ritual of Shielding over the area, thereby rendering it impossible to scry or use detection spells upon, in the same way that the elemental was protected from such probings.

His task complete, he resumed his path towards the city, confident that his preparations would be sufficient to ward off any suspicions - or at least make them impossible to confirm.