The next morning, Xander and Drakthar wait for the others to show up at the edge of the city, so they can head towards the rumored location of the sand dragon.

“It’s well past the time we were supposed to meet. Did they get lost or just forget?” Drakthar looks around impatiently.

“I knew them getting drunk last night was going to slow us down,” Xander exhales, palming his forehead.

Finally, they see Kayde approach them.

“Hey, guys. They are very hung-over, so we’re going to leave tomorrow,” he informs them.

“No, tell them they must travel while sick, I don’t want to waste any time. That dragon is waiting for me, I can sense it,” Drakthar demands, his fists trembling with anticipation at his sides.

“It’s okay Drakthar. I am actually with Kayde on this one. If we get attacked while heading there and they are sick it might be too much for us to handle. It’s better if we just wait a day”, Xander agrees with Kayde, but not for the reasons he claims.

“Cool, I guess you’re in the minority; here, take this as a consolation prize,” Kayde hands Drakthar a sack.

“Why would I consider this bag a prize?” Drakthar looks confused at the plain-looking bag in his hand.

“Because my friend, it’s not just any bag. It’s a bag of holding; able to hold whatever you put in it. Alcaeus and I bought some while we were out the other day,” Kayde explains cheerily.

“I have heard of them, but I’ve never needed one since they can’t even hold power armor,” Drakthar scoffs, clearly unimpressed by the gift.

“Oh, well, that sucks. I totally got you it because of that. I guess it looks like you are still going to have to go around with that cart and horse,” Kayde replies, masking his disappointment.

“It’s not that it doesn’t fit, the bag’s magic is just too weak to hold something so powerful,” Drakthar corrects him.

Kayde shrugs, “Whatever, I’m going to go see what shenanigans I can get up to since we have the extra day. See you guys back here tomorrow,” He walks away, waving nonchalantly over his shoulder as he leaves.

“Xander, do you want to train with me?” Drakthar asks, eagerly extending him an invitation.

“No, sorry not today, I have something to do before we leave,” Xander awkwardly explains before walking off. Drakthar wishes Xander could have joined him for sparring practice, but, unperturbed, he heads to the edge of the city alone.

Xander returns to the refugees’ camp one last time, intending to inform Gwendolyn of their plans, he approaches her tent hoping she is there, “Hello, is Gwendolyn there? It’s Xander again”. This time he doesn’t see Gwendolyn, instead, her tent mate’s brunette head pops out.

“Hey,” the girl lowers her gaze, almost as if it saddens her to tell him this, “I’m sorry, but Gwendolyn disappeared last night”.

“What? You mean she just left without saying anything? She didn’t give you any indication of where she went?” Xander frantically asks his desperation plain on his slightly tanned face.

“No, she disappeared while I was asleep, all of her stuff…” she pauses, eyes alight as she recalls, “Actually, she did forget this weird statue!” The girl goes back into the tent and grabs a small object. It seems to be some sort of miniature statue.

Upon closer inspection, Xander notices that it is a statue of the sun god, Gwyn.

“Weird… may I have this?” Xander requests, hoping it might help him get on her trail and eventually meet Gwendolyn again.

“Sure, I only slept in the same tent with her. She would probably rather you had it. Anyway, I know how you felt about her so I hope you two get to see each other again,” the girl smiles, handing him the statue, retreating back inside her tent.

Xander returns to the city and frantically searches for Gwendolyn. He scours every part of Aconblasam, searching well into the darkest hours of the night, but finds no trace of her. He finally heads back to his room mere hours before the break of dawn, utterly defeated.

By the time the sun comes up, Xander has not slept a wink, unable to calm himself after the previous day’s events. He gets up and goes to the edge of town where the group is supposed to meet.

“Yo, kid, took you long enough,” Alcaeus complains upon seeing Xander.

“Says the guy who delayed us an entire day,” Xander snipes back, not having the patience for his crap.

“Glad you made it, now everyone is finally ready, let’s head out,” Kayde interjects, trying to break up any potential arguments over Xander’s defensive statement.

Drakthar grabs a hold of his horse’s reins and begins to lead it to the North East, with Xander walking alongside him.

“You look tired,” Drakthar points out as they walk.

“I know, I am tired. Truth is, I didn’t get much sleep last night,” Xander explains listlessly, his expression devoid of emotion.

“Too excited for our upcoming fight against the sand dragon?” Drakthar is glad his friend is as enthusiastic as he is about slaying this legendary beast.

“Yeah... that’s totally it, couldn’t be anything else,” Xander lies, his tired state masking the sarcasm.

“Hey guys, I just thought of something,” Alcaeus suddenly tells the others after a long period of silence.

“Yeah? I mean that’s new for you but what is it?” Kayde asks, his face displaying his intrigue.

“So, if the sandstorms are really thick we might get separated like those refugees back in our caravan. I was thinking about how we can avoid that so I think we should tie a rope to connect all of us to each other so we can’t be separated. I saw you buy a really long rope the other day Kayde, so let’s use that one,” Alcaeus suggests.

“Wow, that’s actually a really good idea. Also, if we are connected I can switch all of us away from trouble with something using my power,” Xander adds, shocked that Alcaeus could think of something actually useful. They each tie the rope about their waists and forge onwards.

After two days of travel, the group settles down for the night. Jorge, who has been drinking the entirety of the trip, is getting bored with the repetitive travel.

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Starved for entertainment, he goes up to Alcaeus and makes a wager, “Alcaeus, you see that dune over there? I bet you I can hit it with a fireball of mine. If I do, you owe me two hundred, and if I don’t, I’ll give you two hundred”.

Alcaeus looks at Jorge’s inebriated state and smirks, confident in his victory, “Okay Jorge, you drunk fool, let’s see it”. Jorge begins to summon a fireball. Just as he lobs it, he stumbles, causing the fireball to fly straight up into the night sky.

The others watch as it reaches its peak and starts to head down on an inevitable trajectory back towards Jorge. Xander switches him with a grain of sand at the last second. The explosion from the fireball’s impact propels sand everywhere. As the others try to shield their eyes, they hear Jorge retching from the shock Xander’s ability caused to his system.

Once the sand clears Alcaeus approaches Jorge with his hand extended, “Looks like I win, I’ll take my two hundred gold please”.

“Dude, he’s still throwing up, at least wait until he is done,” Kayde tells Alcaeus, seeing him standing like a vulture over Jorge.

“Fine, I guess I can wait till then… but he better pay up,” Alcaeus spits out, backing off.

After he finishes mixing his previous meals with the sand, Jorge faints.

“Hey Alcaeus, it looks like you will have to bother him about it tomorrow,” Kayde observes, much to his own amusement.

“Oh fuck! Dammit, yeah fine,” Alcaeus agrees, irate that he did not immediately receive his gold.

They continue to travel for two more days, Alcaeus pestering Jorge for the gold, but not receiving it as Jorge swears he doesn’t remember the wager. Seeing how inebriated he was that night, none of the others are surprised.

They settle down for the night close to where the sand dragon roams. Near the end of the night, Kayde sits outside on watch, getting bored, he starts to pace around the outside of the tent. While making one of his trips around the camp, he notices a faint light in the distance.

Kayde quietly goes into the tent and wakes up Xander. Upon awakening, Xander notices that it is still dark out.

Confused as to why Kayde would be waking him up in the middle of the night, he whispers, “What?”

“Just come here and check something out for me,” Kayde whispers back, having picked Xander for a specific reason.

Xander exits the tent, rubbing his tired eyes.

“See that, off in the distance?” Kayde points to the strange light.

“Yeah, it looks blue,” Xander notes, straining to see the far off glow.

“Go check it out while I wait here,” Kayde orders.

“So that’s why you woke me up. Fine, I’ll head over there. If I scream like a little girl, wake up the others,” Xander warns Kayde, his serious tone a stark contrast to his ridiculous statement.

Xander walks over to the light and sees that it is indeed a blue campfire. However, it isn’t quite like normal fire, always remaining uniform, the flames maintaining the same shape rather than flickering. Xander rubs his eyes one more time to make sure he is seeing it right.

Kayde watches Xander return, “Well? What is it?”

“A blue fire. But it’s odd, the flames don’t move, it was uniform. It was odd to see for sure but I don’t think it is anything threatening to us, I am going to go back to sleep, let’s deal with it in the morning,” Xander yawns as he goes back into the tent.

As the sun peaks over the eastern dunes, Kayde wakes the others.

“What?” Alcaeus asks angrily, the hardest to awaken without putting him in a foul mood.

“We need to check out this weird fire I found last night. So get up, I need to put away the tent,” Kayde tells him.

They all get out of the tent and ready themselves for the day, walking over to the fire Xander had inspected earlier once they are packed up.

“Yeah, I can see what you meant, it is oddly uniform,” Kayde confirms, agreeing with Xander’s earlier assessment. Drakthar’s horse starts to panic over nothing, kicking up sand as it tries to flee. Drakthar tugs on its reins, struggling to keep it from galloping away.

“So why are we all standing around looking at this thing?” Alcaeus comments as they all just stand there for a couple of minutes.

“I don’t know… but I feel like this is important,” Kayde insists, not letting it go.

Xander catches a glimpse of Jorge and notices that he looks like he knows what this is.

“Jorge, do you know something about this fire?” Xander asks.

Jorge is still drunk from the copious amounts of alcohol he imbibed the previous night, so he pauses before responding, “... maybe”, scratching his beard.

“Jorge, I bet you ten gold you have no clue what that is,” Kayde taunts him, trying to trick him into telling them what it is.

Jorge starts to wipe away the sand around the fire, clearly looking for something. Finally, he clears the sand off an indentation of a fist into a marble structure that must be buried here.

“Stand back lads,” He lights his fist on fire and plunges it into the indentation.

The ground begins to shake; Drakthar grips the reins of his horse tighter, anticipating that it will try to run again. Fifty feet away from them, sand begins to pour down a hole, quickly becoming a massive pit.

From it emerges the largest creature any of them have ever laid eyes on. Jorge immediately knows that it’s the sand dragon of legend. It’s skin’s golden tint glimmers in the sunlight. As it rears its enormous head it bears its gold-coated teeth at them, loosing a blood-curdling roar from its gaping maw.

“Fuck!” Alcaeus cries, frozen in fear.

“Buy me some time, I need to get my power armor on!” Drakthar shouts at the others as he sprints to his cart. Kayde and Xander pull out their rifles and begin to fire.

“Aim for the eyes! If we can blind it we will have an advantage,” Xander calls out to Kayde as Jorge flings fireballs at the titanic beast.

Even Alcaeus gathers enough courage to draw his pistol and shoot at the dragon, knowing there is no way he can run from it. Drakthar finally gets his power armor on while Kayde hits its left eye.

“Nice fucking shot!” Alcaeus calls out while continuing to whittle away at the beast.

Drakthar boldly strides right up to the sand dragon, battle-axe at the ready.

“I was unable to cut through your hide before, but see me now!” he roars, aiming a devastating uppercut at its underbelly. It is unable to quite penetrate the hide, but Drakthar feels it starting to give way.

The sand dragon bellows once more before trying to swipe at Drakthar. Drakthar drops to the sand, dodging under its mighty claw at the last second. It looks like it’s about to try to stomp down atop Drakthar when Kayde pierces its remaining eye, completely blinding it.

The dragon stops trying to hit Drakthar as a strange sound begins to emanate from its throat. Xander realizes what is going on at the last second and he switches the dragon with a grain of sand as far away from Drakthar as possible.

After it has been moved the sand dragon spits its stomach acid all over the sand, an attack that would surely have ended Drakthar. They start firing at it again as Drakthar runs towards it. Kayde hits it in the eye again, almost as an insult because it certainly did not need to be blinded further.

“Ka-ching,” he smirks cockily as it connects.

Drakthar swings towards the sand dragon’s underbelly in the same spot he hit before, his axe finally penetrating its hide and digging into its vulnerable flesh. The dragon starts to panic, realizing, perhaps for the first time, its own mortality. In a desperate bid, the dragon burrows underground.

“Spread out everyone, that way if it emerges it will only be able to hit one of us,” Xander calls out to the others. They all put some distance between each other. His plan partially works as the sand dragon resurfaces right beneath Jorge. He goes flying into the air and smashes into the ground with a sickening crunch near the dragon.

Kayde rushes to help Jorge as the other three approach the disoriented and heavily wounded sand dragon. Drakthar takes one last strike, gouging out the beast’s heart. Blood pours from the gaping hole he created, soaking the sand around the dragon and drenching him with gore. The colossal creature remains standing for one final second that seems to last an eternity before crumbling to the ground. The sand shakes around them from the weight of the sand dragon’s corpse, a deafening boom following the fall of the goliath. As the sand finally settles, silence reigns over the battlefield.

“Fuck yeah! Drakthar you monster!” Alcaeus screams out in victory. Drakthar wipes the blood off his axe and calmly removes his power armor putting it back in the cart, knowing it will need to be cleaned later as well. Xander falls to the sand as the adrenaline leaves him.

Off to the side, Kayde is treating Jorge’s injuries. Despite the apparent brutality of the blow he was dealt, they are nothing too serious, just some cuts and bruises.

Jorge sits up for a second to see the dead dragon before him, “I… I can’t believe I am one of the men who slew this beast. Extraordinary…” Jorge passes out from exhaustion.