I let out a deep sigh of relief as I sank into the sand, letting it surround me as I basked in the nice warm sun, letting it overwhelm me as I laid there exhausted. All my muscles hurt and ached. I couldn’t wait for this thing to be over. However, suddenly Dalyva yelped in surprise. “What?” I ask, turning my head to look at her. She has a token in her hand. One that reads- How did we end up here?- with a question mark as the symbol above the inscription, just as another token appears in front of me. I grabbed it. It’s the monster token, and as I look around, I realise that the poison from the tsunami had made the surrounding sand black, although not where we were, as Shankhe had protected us from the water.

“W-what’s this token?” Says Shankhe, slightly shaking as he grabs the token from out of Dalyva’s grasp. “Is it a hidden one? Because Guide didn’t mention it.” A pillar appeared in front of us just then, surprising all of us, and we all jumped. Not with our legs, of course. Just to be clear, Shankhe was still crippled. Just as that thought runs through my mind, I look up in slight panic, before hurriedly looking at Dalyva, then Shankhe. “Shankhe.” I say in a panicking tone. “Y-you.” I can’t say it, I just can’t. No. “Y-you’re about to be… permanently crippled.” That jolted all of us away, and instantly I started to pile Shankhe onto my back, but Dalyva shook her head at me. “I’ll take him, it’ll be good practice anyways.” We had completely forgotten about the pillar….

I nod gratefully, and let her carry him as i raced ahead to the once purple now blackened forest spread with goodies of all kinds. Most are just feathers or packets of meat, but as we look we see many other things. In my frantic search, i dont notice a little bird, until Shankhe points it out. “What's that bird there?” He asks curiously from Dalyva’s back. I look to it. It’s a tiny bird, one with purple feathers, and black stripes just like a tiger. Dalyva’s eyes light up as she notices, and she rushes over to it, looking very excited. “It’s a Maetra, a healing bird. We can heal Shankhe with it.” We all look at the bird, and Dalyva walks over to it. She picks it up, and it stares at Shankhe on her back, almost like its looking with curiosity. Most monsters are about 10% sentient, the same as a dog or cat, except with more instincts, so it's actually like a wolf or cheetah. That is, the first level of monsters.

I shake my head. I’ll let thoughts wander later, not now. We need to heal Shankhe first. Dalyva looks at the bird, and gently talks. “Hey, can you heal my friend?” She puts Shankhe on a log, and the Maetra in front of his hurt leg, waiting. “Payment.” Squawks out the bird. “Payment for Tori.” It starts to glow a beautiful golden light. As the light got to Shankhe’s leg, he starts to look really grateful, and his face, that was constantly slightly in pain before, is now full of happiness and bliss. “Release for Tori. That is payment.” Says the bird, whose name, according to it, is Tori. Dalyva hesitates for a split second, but aside from realising it would be unfair to just leave the bird and not pay it back, it would be helpful for us, but she, and I, suspected they wouldn’t let the bird leave the room anyway.

After Shankhe’s leg stops glowing, he looks down at it. A massive scar of teeth wraps around most of his leg. We all knew it would probably happen, but, well, it was still a shock to see. I help Shankhe up as he hesitantly steps on his hurt foot, expecting pain from his leg, but there was none. Sighing gratefully, he happily let go of me. I grin as well, extremely happy he’s able to walk again. As we search through the heaps of other rewards, we find potions…. Yeah, we could’ve had a healing bird, but instead, we used up its one heal.

I sigh, there’s nothing we can do about it now. We pack them away, and I realise something. All the monsters we’ve encountered haven’t given us any cores. That’s strange in and of itself, because that means one of two things. Most monsters that don’t have cores are either really weak monsters that even the common folk can deal with, like just normal rats or animals, or, the other reason they would have no cores, is if they’re a creation or summon of someone or something. Probably the Corruption Entity. I shiver as i think his name. Even now, when I know that they’re not here, I still get the chills.

As we trudge out of the trial room, we dont go through the rest of the pile. “Hey.” Asked Dalyva. “I was wondering. Why did we get the token? We didn’t kill the monsters?” She was genuinely confused, and i guess, yeah, i was too. I think for a bit, looking around the area, before i think the answer popped up. “We put the poison in the water, the monsters tried to drink the water, or swallowed it accidentally since it went into the desert as well. Since we put the poison there, it counted as a kill.” She nods, and Shankhe perks up to talk. “Well, we have five tokens now, including that strange one.” He nods his head to Dalyva as he speaks, indicating the one she got. “Yeah.” I agree. “It’s strange alright. I bet its-judging by its name- a secret achievement for doing the unthinkable.” Dalyva frowned. “Then how did we get it? Weren’t we supposed to kill all the species in the room?” I shrug, and as we walk out the door, Guide greets us with his familiar greeting of- “Time taken, 2 hours, 53 minutes and 45 seconds.”

We all look pretty happy at that, although it definitely seemed shorter to me, probably because of the adrenaline. A yawn escapes me before I could stop it, and I head to my tent to rest. “I’m going to rest for a bit.” I say, as I wave goodbye to them. “Night.” Says Shankhe. “Good night.” Replies Dalyva. “I’m going to have a rest too.” She adds, and I hear her tent zip open.

————————————————

I go to my tent, and start to lie down, but then I start to panic, and my breaths come in shaky breaths. I couldn’t believe it at the time, but as I was getting healed, it truly dawned on me how dauntingly close I was to living with a hobble and pain for the rest of my life. I start to hyperventilate, and my fear increases. Tears streaming down my face, I cry. I try to stop them, but I can’t, no matter what I think. Suddenly the zip opens, and just like I did with Taegan, he had come to me when I truly needed it. Peeking his head around the tent, he looked at me, and walked over to my panicking form. “You okay?” He says softly, as he sees me trying to wipe the tears from my eyes.

He knew it was a stupid question, so did I, but I could tell that he had an underlying question he didn’t say. I rolled over, and he slipped in behind me, putting his arm around me. My body instantly feels a lot more safe and comforted. It didn’t make sense though. We don’t know each other that well. We’ve only known each other for like two weeks. Not even that probably. A-and yet my body… it's acting like I’ve known him my whole life. I get that we’ve survived a lot, and may be brothers, but that's the keyword. May. But I know deep in my mind, the reasonable part, that we definitely are brothers. It’s too obvious. We’re like the sand and the sea. Forever meant to be next to each other.

My tears and panic gradually start to stop. “Thanks.” I mutter quietly, barely loud enough that he can hear. He squeezes me in acknowledgement of it, but I feel it was also partly comforting. It took me some time, but I slowly drifted off in Taegan’s arms.

————————————————

When I wake up with someone in my arms, I try to recall what happened, until I remember what happened. Shankhe had a panic attack it seemed, and I had helped him. I smiled as I felt his hands unconsciously holding onto my arms and making sure they stayed near him, like comfort. Like… brothers. My smile widens as I think that I may never be alone ever again. I may for once finally have someone I can rely on. We have Dalyva as well. A tight knit group of three, who’ve survived thick and thin. But then my vision darkened as that dreaded thought crossed my mind. But first we have to get out of this place. I shake the thought away with another thought. At least we’re still alive.

The monsters I bet are going to start being higher levelled as well probably. Now, not distracted by having to save Shankhe, I can finally think of the levels. The levels of monsters, and, inadvertently adventurers goes like this- common, wood, bronze, stone, iron, coal, gold/yellow, emerald/green, sapphire/blue, amethyst/purple and finally, a rank only found in true legends of adventuring is onyx/black. (Many from Gold up however are referred to with colours commonly and not their official name unless its something actually official.)

Yeah, there’s a lot. Ten whole ranks. Most monsters however don’t even get to coal outside of dungeons, as those that do are immediately killed by adventurers for they can be a big danger to the common folk. Right now, the monsters have been wood rank, but barely. Of course, they’ve increased in strength from the start, but gradually. I do fear though that the monsters will soon edge onto the middle or maybe even end of wood. I can fight up to mid-ranked wood monsters.

Now, that may seem weak in the grand scheme of things, but overall for me, I think it's pretty good, since most adults that didn’t take an adventuring life, but still fought when they were younger mostly only get to the very bottom of bronze on average, though most are wood. Common is only for young children that aren’t allowed to go hunting, or those who are too weak to want to hunt in the first place. A sigh comes from in front of me, and I know that Shankhe’s awake. “Hey Sha.” The nickname slipped out before I could stop it. “Hey Tae.” He snorts back, holding in laughter. I chuckle. “Tae doesn’t make sense!” I protest. “It sounds like tie, as in tie that knot.” He just continues to laugh. “And Sha isn’t bad? It sounds like you tried to say Sharp, but forgot the last two sounds.” We just laugh. “Well, you’re Sha now!” I declare. “Hey!” He exclaims, then huffs. “Fine, then you’re Tae.” We then look up as Dalyva enters, then at each other. “Dal!” I say. “What?” She says, confused. “I’m Tae, he’s Sha, and you’re Dal.” She shakes her head in disbelief at our childish game.

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We all have a good tease, before deciding that Sha can be Shankhe’s nickname, and Tae, as in T-ay not tie can be mine, but Dalyva wanted her name to stay the same. So yeah. That’s our nicknames now. We get up for breakfast, the reason why Dalyva first came in the tent in the first place, and eat some more gruel. After eating breakfast, I grabbed some of the meat we had picked up from one of the monsters. I couldn’t be bothered remembering. I put it on the wooden chopping board, and grab one of my jambiyas, wiping it on myself and then cutting the chuck of meat into small thin slices. Not too thin though. Maybe half a centimetre thick? Something like that. I cook the meat dry, since if it was anything but it would spoil quickly since we just wanted to carry it around in a normal bag.

The meat starts to cook slowly, and shrivels up as it dries. It’s definitely something that we will enjoy later, well, depending on if they like jerky or not. Of course, it's not like most beef jerky that has marinades or flavours, but we really don’t have any right now, so we don’t have a choice, do we? No. Anyways, I decided that while the jerky was cooking, I could use this time to make some stuff with the ingredients we got from the Gatherer trial. One of the things we collected just happened to be heads of wheat, and so, using a mortar and pestle I could make flour. The only real problem with this, is that you have to mash only two or three grains at a time. However, right now, I needed to get the grains off the actual stalks, as Dalyva hadn’t done that. Don’t get me wrong, it was kind of annoying, but I understood why. It would take too long for her to gather it, and we didn’t want to be stuck there all day. Anyways, I got out one of the stalks, and a curious Shankhe peered over my shoulder.

“Tae~~~~” He whines in annoyance. I barely look up as I respond, knowing what he’s going to say. “Do laps around the room.” I say, just wanting him to not be peering over my shoulder and not helping. “Otherwise you can help seperate grain from wheat.” Immediately he started to walk over to where the entrance was. Now, was, as in, it's still there, but unable to be opened. The room itself was pretty big, maybe from the entrance to its opposite wall about 56 metres, or two basketball courts, and about that wide as well. Dalyva was washing up after breakfast, but I think she was almost done.

Anyways, back to getting grains of wheat stalks. I got about halfway through carefully picking them, when Dalyva looked over at me. “Why don’t you run your hand along the stalk and do it like that?” She asks, confused. “Because it’d just go all over the floor, as no one’s holding open a bag for me to put it in.” She looks confused, but then notices how I’m carefully placing my handfuls of grains into a non magical bag. She then just shrugs and goes to where Shankhe is jogging around the room, sweat trickling down his forehead. “I’m joining Shankhe.” She says. “Ok.” I acknowledge, and continue to pick the grains off the stalk.

It’s boring, mindless work, but I know that once I’ve done it, it will all be worth it in the end. I couldn’t wait to make biscuits with the flour, Tor can make sugar, and the Bak eggs make amazing substitutes for normal eggs. I would bet there would be people who would say normal eggs are a replacement for Bak eggs, but that's probably only the extremely rich, as unless you collect them yourself, getting enough for everyday use is incredibly expensive. Especially if you wanted Bak eggs from higher ranked Baks. The ones we got were from low ranked wood Bak.

It’s time to grind now!!! I couldn’t wait. It would be so much more entertaining, I would think, to mash up the grains then pick them off the stalks. I got a whole huge bag of grains, and had a dimensional bag for the flour I grounded. “I’m tired Tae.” Says a voice behind me, with a pant, and a sigh as they sit down on the stone next to me. “Hey, you could grind some flour?” I offer, holding out the mortar and pestle that I’ve just put some grains in. Shankhe pouts, and I take it back.

As I start to grind it up, we talk about meaningless things. “So.” I ask. “Which gods do you support?” I’m curious, of course, since most don’t necessarily support a single god, and instead most actually don’t support a god at all, but still do the festivals. Shankhe looks at me. “Huh? Me.” He thinks for a bit. “Not really any.” He says. “But I do mostly; The Summer Solstice of Aroma, (pronounced ah-row-may) The Winter Solstice of Laeuca, (pronounced lay-oo-k-ah) and The Sea Shanty of Shana.” I nod understandingly. Many do the winter and summer solstices, since it's also a celebration for months to come.

Of course, the last one, The Sea Shanty of Shana, i was expecting, since many people who come from the sea love her, and always they throw a feast in her honour before entering the sea when the food and booze is eaten. “What's your favourite?” I ask, just merely curious. He thinks a bit more, before saying. “The Sea Shanty of Shana, definitely. It’s my favourite, and I bet heaps of others as well.” As he speaks, I finally have the grains to a satisfactory level of powder, and I scrape it into the bag. It looks so little, but then I look at the bulging bag of grains, and then decide, no, it's not a little. I get my next three grains, and start to grind them up.

“What does your kingdom do on the Summer Solstice of Aroma? Who’s your leader?” I ask, curious. “For us, our leader in Shirono is Captain Spira and Sailor Dave. They come out together with the rest of their crew and Dave lights the leaves of the Aromane tree.” For those who don’t know, lighting the leaves of the Aromane tree-which has clover-like leaves and acorn fruit-symbolises good luck for the crops and a great harvest of the year. This is to celebrate the coming of the spring harvest and fruits. They also, not only do they have this but they also have a huge market for weeks to come selling all their fruit and harvest.

“And the Winter Solstice?” I ask. Shankhe smirks, and says. “We get to dance on the lakes and rivers and get to sing on them!” He brags. I groan. Living in the desert meant that when it came to the Winter Solstice, and snow covered the sand, which it actually did surprisingly, everyone was wearing heaps of cloth, not used to the cold weather. You see, people dance and sing in the snow on the solstice under the full moon so that they don’t starve in the winter months. It’s something that has gone on for centuries, and a tradition many love, even when it's cold.

“What about you?” Asks Shankhe, directing questions at me. “What festivals do you do?” I shrug. “I do the Festival of Uxciesa, The Summer Solstice of Aroma and The Winter Solstice of Laeuca obviously, and yeah, that's it.” He nods, and then questions me again. “What do you do for the Festival of Uxciesa again?” I roll my eyes at his forgetfulness. “We dance under the skies with masks on that are all the same, so no one can tell noble from commoner as we dance under the stars as everyone’s equal.” I explain, and he nods. “Ohhhhh.” He says. “Anyway, who’s your leader?” He asked me. I chuckle as my hand lifts up and down grinding about my fifth batch of grains. “Sand warrior Gari and Wife Ei.” Shankhe frowns before saying. “Ei’s an elf, isn't she?” I nod. “Yep, sure is.” He smirks, having gotten it right and being overly happy. Soon a worn out Dalyva walks over, and flops down on my other side.

“What are you talking about?” She asks, and we look up as we notice her presence. “Oh, hey Dalyva, we were just talking about what we celebrated. She nods. “Oh yeah, can I join?” She asks, still trying to recover her breath but doing pretty well. “Yeah, sure. So, first question. What festivals do you celebrate?” I ask, and she clearly was expecting it as she replies. “The Summer Solstice of Aroma, The Winter Solstice of Laeuca and The Growth of Dasani.” I nod. “Isn’t the growth of Dasani when you like, help the trees and everything blooms for an hour?” I question, not in a mean way but a sort of, I forgot, please tell me. “Yep.” She replies, confirming my statement. “That’s completely true.” Shankhe perks up then.

“Second question.” He says. “Who’s your leaders, for The Festival of Aroma.” He adds the last bit so she doesn't get confused. “Me?” She says. “Daruden has Boss Pika and Worker Bill.” Shankhe snorts. “Noooo.” He drags out in disbelief. “Yep.” She answers. “All completely true. Anyways, they do get made fun for it, but no one really cares, as it's sort of the whole point for everyone to laugh at their titles, so no one feels like they’re below their leaders.” I quickly thought of something. “Isn’t Worker Bill a half elf?” I ask, just wanting to confirm the truth, and she nods. “Yep. Pika’s a full blooded elf, and her advisors a half blood. Not many really care though, since they’re good leaders and that's all that matters. Only some of the elder elves stuck in the olden ways complain, and even then it's not really complaining, just banter between old folk.” A smile slips up my lips as what she’s talking about reminds me of Martov, the stubborn old dwarf that he is.

Eventually as we’re talking, my hand starts to cramp, and I wince, taking my hand away from the pestle and rubbing the taut muscles with my other hand. The poor, overworked muscles protest, but I still have about 20 grains left, and a half full bag of flour. Dalyva notices this, and looks at me. “Can I have a go?” She asks, and I nod.

We chatted for a bit longer. I took the jerky off the fire and put it in the bag, even when I supposed I could let it cool down outside of the bag, but I couldn’t be bothered. As Dalyva finished grounding the last grains, and put it in the bag, I grabbed the Tor, and chucked as much of it as I could into the mortar and pestle. Which is to say, about half of the total sweet grass. I mash it up until it's a fine green paste, and, getting creative here, use the pelts of some animals to dry the paste on. Many would shrivel up and glare at me for that, and I’m sure that they’d be right in saying it probably would get fur on it, except I used the cows pelt, so it was just leather and no hair on one side, and also, when the green paste dried? It becomes white sugar.

Don’t ask me how, because I don’t know. That’s a question for Dalyva. Suddenly I caught myself. Wait, why am I talking to myself again. Mentally shrugging, I leave the pelt with the paste on it to dry on the floor, trusting Shankhe and Dalyva not to step on the pelt. Now, as I sat down and watched Dalyva and Shankhe talk, I thought of something. “Hey guys?” I say, and they both turn to look at me. “Yeah?” Says Shankhe. “What do you think we should make with the ingredients we have? Cause we can either make a sponge cake or biscuits.” They ponder for a split second, before Shankhe blurts out. “Can’t we make more flour and sugar, like, I don’t know, grow them?” I smirk at his question, knowing that he can’t choose, but as I register his words, my smile fades to a thoughtful expression. “Biscuits.” Said Dalyva with a definite tone as I pondered how to make dirt, although I acknowledged her choice while I did so.

Maybe with the pelts as pots and the leftover stalks from the wheat to make dirt it could work?