Like Sands Through The Hourglass [Event Topic - Open to All]

[NPC]

All things start off small, some wise old man with too much money to pay small minded people with too much money on their hands had actually developed a phrase based around this adage. This was especially true for people, as in much the same fashion that thunderstorms inevitably were birthed from a collection of dust particles that gathered enough water vapour to snowball into a fully blown cloud. Quiet an achievement for one small speck of dust. The analogy carried over to humans, all it required was the appropriate timing, a powerful presence and one man or woman could change a country forever. Perhaps even the world. Sunagakure, the Village Hidden in the Sand. It was for the most part, a barren sandscape. Without life, save for the niche few animals who had managed to locate a particular soft point within the nearly uniformally harsh environment. Humans rated amongst these few, but to progress beyond survival and flourish required trade. Now, one might call it peculiar that a dessert would have much in the way to trade, but in reality Sunagakure was considered to be the largest exporter of general raw metal ore and minerals. Historically anyway, this trade waxed and waned depending on several factors, such as the attitude of the resident Kage, relationships with the other Villages, and many others beside that. After a area was thoroughly ransacked for materials, it was often abandoned, with the final phase of operations normally telling something about the quality of leadership who had worked there. Often times, repair work would go into the mining operation, but occasionally there would be shoddy jobs done - with dirt merely dumped back into the hole. Or simply left out entirely. This particular offence was typically committed by foriegners - who had no real respect for any currency of authority save the one that clinked and flashed gold in the sun. It was in one of these pits, where the methods used to excavate had been barbaric and torturous, that the Sandstorm began. It started small, but soon rose up like a twister, drawing out various select items from within the sand itself. Building up a core, a safe haven for the eye of the storm. How long it stayed there, no one really knows - but when it finished the core, it rose up slowly. Now indiscriminatingly pulling the sand as the wind grew to a fever pitch and the most gargantuan sandstorm that Sunagakure no Sato had ever seen rose up like the fist of God and descended in a tidal fashion towards the Village. For someone watching the sky, they would have been taken aback by the speed of which the Sandstorm had developed. But for those lapsed in idle conversation, then the first early warning sign would have been the wind abruptly falling away. And the light of the sun dimming as the cloud of dirt blocked out the early morning rays. The Village still had time to act, to lock down objects that might be thrown around in the wind, get people indoors and mobile the Shinobi forces to act. But by the most generous estimate - it would be on them before long.