Turns out that the novelty of having all the money in the world wears off real quick when you realize you cannot move it, let alone spend it. Archimedes spent a good hour or so walking around the cave, trying to figure out what his next plan of action was. He’d familiarized himself with the overall layout of the cave, and had found the several “rooms” that stood out. A large cavern with several levels to it, each holding massive piles of frozen livestock. A room with a lake of lava. And what could only be called the lobby or entrance hall, a massive cavernous room with multiple tunnels leading out of it.

Various tunnels lead to smaller rooms, but Archimedes couldn’t deduce their meaning. However one thing did catch his attention out of all the others distractions. In the entrance hall was a large gate like structure built into the wall where the entrance should be. It was fairly nondescript, a circle with a sort of jagged carving of a sun on its surface. Nevertheless, something about the placement was making his head itch. On the other hand, maybe it was the slight discoloration of the stone compared to the rest of the cave. In any case, Archimedes’ gamer senses were tingling and telling him this was an important path.

To what? He had no clue.

It didn’t take long for Archimedes’ bare feet to start complaining about walking on rough granite flooring. A quick trip back to the treasure tunnels had the young man sifting through the trove of wonders for some gear. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t find any magical items. No amount of swinging a sword vigorously or doing poses in armor would yield an extraordinary effect. In the end, he settled on a pair of leather boots, a black cloak and hood, some gloves and a belt, and a nice looking satchel that reminded him of a messenger bag he’d bought at a Renaissance Faire. He also took a cool looking dagger, a couple books, a few curious items he wanted to study later, and enough gold in the bottom of the bag to hopefully last him a while. Sadly, he couldn’t find any pants that weren’t part of some armor set, and he didn’t know how to put on armor let alone lug around heavy plate mail. Archimedes stood in front of a large mirror looking at himself.

If it weren’t for the sweat pants, he’d look pretty cool.

A sudden growling in his stomach pulled Archimedes from his musings. In all the searching he’d done, he hadn’t found anything that could be considered food. Of course, what was food to a dragon may not have been good for the human body. Nevertheless, the young man scratched his chin in thought, pondering his next step. He could either find a way out of here, or chop up the dragon and see what that tasted like. He couldn’t help shuddering at the thought. Something about a thing being able to talk made it un-eatable to him. So that left the strange circle gate thing in the entrance hall.

Walking up to the gate this time caused the stone to move. It split into six even wedges and pulled apart, like the aperture of a camera shutter. The inside of the passage was long, the walls curved in a circular tube while the floor remained perfectly flat. On the left side of the passage was runes that began to glow as Archimedes walked passed them. On the right side was a long sheet of glass about a foot tall with with crackling violet white energy behind it. Between the runes and the energy the passage was dimly lit, but enough to see. His boots echoed through the hallway as he walked, the sounds of something whirring to life surrounding him.

At the end of the corridor was another circular slab of stone, but this one had a curious design about it. All along the edge were various large symbols that were different from the runes on the side of the wall. Archimedes scratched his chin a bit and narrowed his eyes. “My senses tell me this is either a fancy door or some sort of portal…” Weird lights, magic looking runes, and a hallway with a special door on the other end. Portal was an obvious conclusion.

“And if my geek assumption is correct, each of these symbols might lead to a different place. Maybe instead of flying the dragon just teleported all over the place.” Reaching up he traced his finger around one of the nearby symbols. He immediately regretted this choice as the symbol began to glow and the whirring noises around him got louder. The slab suddenly cracked down the middle with violet light seeping through.

“Aw buckets…,” the young man groused to himself as the slab shattered into a thousand pieces and was consumed in the light. As a burst of hot air hit Archimedes in the face, he heard the faint sound of what he thought was rapid footsteps. His head turned just as the light flashed. All at once he was falling. His entire view was violet light as the air around him turned dry. The sudden impact on his shoulder was the only warning his got before tumbling head over heels and getting sand in his mouth as a result.

Sand. He hated sand. Archimedes pushed himself to a sitting position and looked around. He was sitting the side of a sandy dune, a hot sun above him beating down like an oven. All at once, he was very thankful for the cloak and hood he was wearing. There was no sign of where he had come from, there was nothing but sand in all directions from where he was standing. The portal must have been a one-way trip. Archimedes picked himself up and considered his next step before striking off westward. Follow the sun, and hope he finds civilization soon.

Walking sucked. Walking under a hot sun with shifting sands under his feet sucked.

After what felt like hours, Archie crested a dune and spotted a settlement in the distance. A collection of sandstone buildings connected by rough gravel paths greeted Archimedes as he entered the small town. No one really seemed to be out and about as he walked down the path; eventually stopping at a building that had a sign marked ‘Salt Shark Tavern’ on the outside of it. He wasn’t sure what a Salt Shark was, or why it would be in a desert, but Archimedes entered the building nonetheless.

The inside of the tavern was cool and shaded. Several tables scattered about the room with a wooden bar near the back. Behind said bar was a tall broad shouldered individual with their back to Archimedes. “Excuse me.” The young man said, clearing his throat and taking a seat on a nearby stool. “I was wondering if I could get some information.” That would work right? Assuming whoever this was spoke his language a tavern would be just a good a place as any to get information and maybe help.

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“Information ain’t free.” Came a heavy sounding voice as the figure finished shuffling something under bar. Archimedes pulled up his bag and started digging through it to get to the bottom. When he looked up, he saw that the tall man had turned around and he was now face to face with what looked like a mountain of a body with a proportionately sized muscled snake head on top. Archimedes stared dumbly for a moment, and the man raised a scaly eyebrow.

“Somethin’ wrong?” he asked, and Archimedes quickly shook his head. “No sir uh… I have… Um…” He stopped and took a breath. “I’m terribly sorry, I’m very new, very lost, and very much trying to not fall apart.”

“Ya don’t say.”

“If I wanted a place for the night and information how much would this get me?”

Archimedes finally managed to get out, placing one of the larger gold coins on the counter. The snake man picked it up and looked at it carefully. “Haven’t seen a coin of this mint around here before. But coin is coin.” The barkeep pocketed the coin and pulled out a key from behind the bar. “Rooms are downstairs and you get one meal. What do you want to know?”

The ensuing conversation covered the following. He was at least a few days travel from the nearest settlement that wasn’t an outpost or farmer village. If he wanted work, people sometimes posted jobs at the tavern. And if he wanted to travel, he’d best get a guide or wait for the caravan. Archimedes chose to hit a few tasks at once. He put in a request for a traveling guide, ordered something to eat, and then headed downstairs to his room. It wasn’t much, but the soft bed was far more inviting than anything else he could think of. After eating some sort of bread, Archimedes passed out.

As night fell in the small sand village people began to filter in to the tavern. Archimedes found himself a table in the corner of the tavern, where he could get a good view of people who came in. More of the snakelike people like the bartender, a variety of short and tall fox like people called Talasu, even a few humans. At least, they looked like humans.

Everyone's clothing looked like it belonged, loose robe-like garb that fit the desert aesthetic well. It made his own dark cloak and hood stand out like a sore thumb. And maybe it was the coat, maybe it was something else, but despite him leaving the job with the bartender, no one was making the approach. It was even more concerning when someone would talk to the bartender, turn, look at him, take a few steps, and then seem to change their mind once they got within 5 yards of Archimedes. It was as if he had a giant stink cloud around him and no one wanted to be inside of it.

With a sigh, Archimedes poked at his food he'd ordered. He wondered how long it would take for a caravan or something to make it to this specific village. He wondered how long he would be able to survive on the money he'd taken with him. Archimedes was pretty sure the bartender was overcharging him, but what was he going do? Risk getting kicked out?

It was then that he had an idea. A bit of a dumb one, all things considered, but this hole situation was dumb. Arch pulled out the d20 and studied it. It was the perfect shape of a icosahedron, roughly the size of a standard die of this nature, The material from his best guess was some sort of crystal, the way it reflected light had an almost rainbow quality about it. The engravings on its surface wasn't numbers, however they were all different.

Clatter.

He let the die fall. It landed on a symbol. Nothing happened. He glanced around the room. Nothing happened. He picked up the die again and looked at it. The side that had come up when the dragon had... somehow died. It looked very minimalistic, and could be considered a one. He carefully placed the die down, with that symbol facing up. Nothing happened.

Clatter.

Different symbol this time. Archimedes glanced around, although this time someone in the room started laughing with their comrades. Strange but, had the die had anything to do with that? Archimedes rolled again, looking around the room as he did. His eyes passed over someone arm wrestling, and abruptly the man beat his competitor in a burst of strength.

Coincidence maybe? Archimedes saw one man carrying four mugs of drink. What the man didn't see was someone's travel bag a little too far out in the way. His foot caught, and the man began to trip and fall.

Clatter.

Time seemed to slow down for Archimedes as he watched the die hit the table, bouncing once before landing on a symbol. The man suddenly righted himself, landing his footing without crashing into a table of people. Several of the patrons laughed and clapped, and the man chuckled, giving a slight bow as he continued to his table.

Maybe it was seeing patterns were there were none. Maybe he was going insane and the last 24ish hours was a hallucination. However, if Archimedes was to connect dots that he was seeing... This rock was actively affecting the world around him. He didn't know what the symbols were yet, but for all intents and purposes, it might as well be a 1 to 20. With a little time, he could easily figure out what was what.

"Nice rock. Is that your form of payment?" The young man jumped, almost dropping the die. He hadn’t noticed anyone coming up to his table and it caught him off guard.

“I’m sorry I was distracted. Please have a seat…” Archie gestured to the chair across from him and looked at the source of the voice, and was struck speechless. Before him was a tall green-skinned woman, dressed in tan leather armor that showed off her muscled arms and defined abs. She had small tusks jutting out of her jaw, with a bristly black ponytail that reached her waist. Her arms was covered in both scars and bright red tattoos, and there was a cross scar in the center of her face. The woman looked downright deadly, and that grin on her face as she sat down with enough force to shake the table was slightly concerning.

“Barkeep said you were looking for a bodyguard.” The orc lady pointed her thumb over at the snake man. “And that you were paying good for it. Well, seeing as you’ve been here for a couple hours and no one else wants the job, consider me your woman.”

She grinned, crossing her arms under her chest. “The name’s Gethra Shatterjaw, and you won’t find a better bodyguard and desert guide this side of the Capitol City. Which is where I heard you were wanting to go?”

Archimedes nodded. “Yes ma’am. My name’s Archimedes Crypt. I am quite literally lost and have no idea how to get there. And I’m not exactly… travel or survival savvy. I need someone to help me out in that regard as well.”

Gethra let out a chuckle, leaning back against her chair and throwing an arm over the back of it. “Alrighty. Barkeep said you had gold?” Archimedes scratched his cheek for a moment. Now that he thought about it, making how potentially wealthy he was well known probably would put a target on his back.

“Yes… I’m really bad at judging how much something might be, so… I’m more or less at your mercy in terms of how much I should pay you.” The orc woman regarded him carefully, as if she was trying to suss out any ulterior motives. Then she smiled and slapped the table with a laugh.

“You really aren’t from around here. But I like you. Sure, I’ll take the job, when do we start?” Seeing as how Archimedes had little to prepare, he and Gethra were soon headed out the door of the tavern. When he asked why they were leaving so soon, the orc woman simply said, “The desert is hotter in the day. It’s easier to stay warm than stay cool.” There weren’t any places to stock up on supplies, so for the time being the two of them would be relying on Gethra’s pack. The woman seemed very self-confident, how bad could it be?