Haji is flown out of Faraon's Dome, now seeing for himself that it is situated on the underside of Rephidim. He is dropped off in the Bazaar and given instructions to go find "The Missing Shekel", to make a delivery. Along the way, he runs into Fenter, who helps him elude a patrol of the Magenta Lance … and who leads him into an ambush by a swarm of vermites controlled by the tall dark and mysterious (well, two out of three ain't bad) bat known as Wyckyd