They made a grave mistake.

The Deyja desert contained enemies, left and right, up and down. The sun overhead was a constant reminder of how insignificant they are to the overall world, for the bird they sent away disappeared into its raging glare. Death was no longer a bodily state that would catch up to them in due time, because now it seemed it could happen in their ever uncertain present. Rest meant nothing when their bottoms felt like they got cooked the second they flopped onto the ground, so they kept walking. Scarlet almost wanted to remove her bomber jacket, but the sleeveless shirt underneath will do nothing good to her pale skin, with her knees already red and irritated. Azazel wasn’t any better, and was in fact, much worse. While steel titalvismult was one heck of a metal, easily withstanding the melting and heating points other metals had, it was still a conductor of heat, and boy did it bring it. Tricia was in a similar predicament to Scarlet—except both her arms and legs were exposed to any and all elements, so she occasionally needed an uncomfortable pat down from Cassandra.

Alodia and Cassandra were, for the most part, fine. Their clothes covered their entire bodies, minus the forearms in Cassandra’s case. Alodia’s vest had a built-in cooling system, and Cassandra’s clothes were made to withstand heat.

Heat exhaustion was just one of their problems, and while dangerous, the thing that may deal the killing blow might not be the sun, but what the sun brings to the surface. Sometimes in the corner of their eye they’d see a moving sand dune, and their heads would rationalize it, thinking that it’s simply a trick of the light, or the effect of a prolonged headache. Occasionally, they’d feel something under their feet, oscillating, and they’d say they’re just dizzy. But now, the shaking no longer felt like a hallucination, and the quiet hissing of sand hitting sand became an alarm.

A goliath of a namuh bursted out from the ground, with its eight legs, curved tail, and a bright stinger at its end. The iridescent sheen on its off-white shell reflected the sun’s rays, and ironically, its soft, beautiful colors brought life to an otherwise beige landscape. Twin pincers snapped, and its sound was akin to echoes in a tunnel, uncharacteristically soft for a brutal creature—until they realized why. The Scorpia’s claws looked rough, covered in dried chunks of blood, sand, and shards, dampening the noise. Worry soon rose, then, a thought came—that they might become a conglomerate with said chunks.

Fear spiked first, and fear meant running, as fast as they could on sand. They were hit with the realization that they couldn’t outrun it, and, that they had to kill it. The five of them would usually say that they could deal with it no problem, but in terrain mostly smooth and barren, they stood no chance. However, in a far off distance was a rocky outcrop that covered from west to east. There came an epiphany —they could fight it on their own terms.

As they dashed towards the rocky outcrop, with Cassandra’s occasional help with ice surfing, they drew their weapons. Tricia shoved her fingers into her metal contraption, the origami planes making a return. She would periodically throw them towards a hill, the planes digging to create a steady anchor, and then pulled, with steam from the contraption pushing her farther from her initial position. Azazel did something similar, using the combined momentum of the chain on her double edged spear and her own running speed to propel herself a couple meters, she timed it together with Tricia. Team CAS, on the other hand, was carried by Cassandra and Alodia, for there was an occasional second where Cassandra would stop ice surfing so Alodia would boost them with a pistol loaded with air propelling bullets.

But this strategy wasn’t foolproof. The Scorpia’s claws would inch ever quickly, nearly snipping Scarlet’s ponytail off. Tricia even had to land on one of its pincers before swiftly making a return to throwing and pulling. With only a mile left, they separated into the different spots of the outcrop. Alodia equipped her sniper rifle, attaching it with a laser sight, and pointed it directly at its ugly, unpressurized, deep desert monster face. Scarlet collapsed her mechanical scythe, sticking close to Cassandra, who hurriedly chugged a bottle of dark pink liquid labelled ‘Tan Jiur’ from her pocket, and for a split second, made a sour-puss face.

Thankfully, the namuh was unable to squeeze through the maze-like outcrop, but it had attempted, and that resulted in the breakage of some of its natural columns, which hit the ground with a heavy thud. They had to think of something quick. If this Scorpia was just like the others they’ve fought before, then its soft spot was its underbelly and its squashed up, liquid pussed face. Its precious eyes were covered by a soft shell, nothing a few bullets couldn’t handle.

Azazel jumped back into the sandy ground, while Tricia threw an unattached plane overhead. It exploded on the Scorpia’s needle on impact, but as expected, did not damage it, not even a crack. Remnants of a black residue was the only telling sign of an “attack.” While that was happening, Azazel slid down below and proceeded to stab its soft shell, burying it deep until she felt its fish-like innards slip between the crevices of her gauntlets. Cassandra offered her services by using an ice scalpel and cutting up the flesh with surgical precision on its more complicated biology, while Scarlet’s large blade ripped and tore through others. Tricia joined shortly, telling the others to hold the Scorpia back as she stuffed as many origami airplanes into its wounds. Alodia stayed on the sidelines, lying flat on the hard ground. Shot after shot made the namuh recoil away from the outcrop, until finally the last two bullets’ force penetrated the shell and reached its eyes, blinding it completely.

Tricia signalled them to temporarily retreat to a safe distance by waving a cylindrical remote control in hand. Once they all took shelter in the rocky maze, she pressed the remote’s only button. It was almost silent, save for the distorted animalistic screams of the namuh as the bombs stuffed within its cavities and wounds erupted one by one. Its screech was in some qualities human, hoarse as if it had the mechanism designed for expressing pain.

The same iridescent sheen on its back was seen in the splattering of blue blood across every hill and rock. Large chunks of its shell remain, but its flesh was flat against the ground, liquid seeping into the sand underneath. Their clothes were not exempted, for it reached even them. Scarlet grabbed a large chunk that splat on her shorts and flicked it away.

Azazel sighed as she looked at her stained top, “That was the messiest combat scenario we’ve ever been in,” she said, “And the most unstylish. Team, I thought we were better than that.”

Tricia nodded, breathing deep gasps of air, and then uncharacteristically opted to sit down on the dusty rock surface without even brushing it off, “Happens to the best of us.”

“Maybe when we’re not tired, starving, or lost, then maybe—“ Scarlet’s complaints were shortly cut off, when a scream came from the ground. Underneath the corpse of the namuh, which in the blink of an eye, exploded into a thousand shards, another Scorpia emerged in its place. Larger, dare say healthier, with its wide and long body and rather fat tail. Its claws were as sharp as a newborn’s, and when they snapped together, it was ear shattering.

They clamped their ears and eyes shut, and now, they truly felt that this might be the end of them. Tricia ran out of disposable planes, save for the ones she used to manoeuvre around, while Alodia’s viable bullets could be counted on one hand. While they should opt to run to civilization as soon as possible, with their weakened state, combined with the namuh’s strength to overcome the wall, they stood no chance.

Cassandra was in no state to fight either with her pollum depleted. And so it rested on Azazel, Alodia, and Scarlet, who were hesitant (especially Alodia) without the help of their teammates, but it was their best chance of survival.

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Before they could even drop down, Cassandra immediately stopped them, pulling their attention to a woman accompanied with two other people who were navigating through the rocky fortress, passing through its loops and holes, only to finally greet the sun, and soon enough, the Scorpia.

“Get out of there!” Azazel screeched, her arms signalling them to back off. The woman and her two companions surely heard her, for they turned their heads up above the wall, only for the woman to smile, before approaching the Scorpia in a confident stride.

Her red dress moved with the wind, split in the middle, like billowing tendrils. The white paste on her arms, neck, and face was unmissable; its design far more complicated than what Team CAS was wearing—almost like it was drawn with a fine pen rather than a thick brush.

“A priestess in the flesh.”

The Scorpia approached with the same tenacity as the older Scorpiat showed earlier, and entangled the woman in its tail. The priestess laid her middle fingers over her ring fingers, the dweller’s powers unlocked, the flow freed.

She raised and clasped her hands together, chanting something in the small hole between them. In seconds, her hands burned a fiery red, and yet, she continued chanting despite the Scorpia slowly squashing her to a pulp. Then, a loud boom from the heavens erupted, surprising the namuh into releasing her. Above the circling clouds descended a phoenix, whose wingspan dwarfed over the giantess Scorpia. A single burst of blue flames came from its mouth, wounding the namuh and breaking through its protective layers. Its reddish purple organs spilled out from the bottom shell, yet its legs continued to move towards the priestess, dragging its equally huge brain and stomach lining through the sand. Namuh always walked towards certain death, a slave to its desires that must not come from their brain.

The phoenix then shrunk in size, sitting on the priestess forearm, which was covered with the thickest application of paste. The dweller smiled at its companion before changing the phoenix’s shape into her helmet, burning into a full blue flame. Her hands hovered over the phoenix, the tips of her fingers now emanating the same blue heat. She inched closer to the Scorpia’s head, and whispered a final chant into the flames that grew larger with each utterance, then fired it towards its exposed guts, finally incinerating its entire form into nothing but shards in the desert.

The priestess’ eyes drooped and her body collapsed into the burning sand. The path of a priestess, it seemed, was taking heaven into their hands, only for their bodies to lay languid in its realms instead.

Their first real night in the Dweller’s Continent started with them having to wash off the icky remains of the namuh. Luckily, one of the priestess’ companions, a water dweller, was generous enough to help them with their predicament. However, the priestess’ party couldn’t stay for very long, as they were apparently sent for an emergency expedition to South Lakas. The South city’s High Priestess, Mayari, hasn’t sent any letter updates about a new flower patch spotted in the Far East.

She emptied her flask of cold tea, and then stood up, “You five need to get going, the next post will be a night’s travel, ah—“ she pulled a scroll from her bag, very clearly a map, “If your friend is indeed the earth dweller conquering the dungeons...” her eyes squinted, for the darkness lowered visibility. She alleviated it once she dropped the map on the ground, crouched, and then lit up a small flame on a fingertip.

The group scooted towards her, eyeing the map, which they noticed was kinetic. A layer of soil that laid on top of it disassembled and reassembled from one place to another, taking shape in the form of intricate circles with symbols they couldn’t comprehend the meaning of. The priestess encircled a name near the place where the dirt scurried away from seconds ago.

“Assuming this is him, it would seem like your dear friend just conquered a dungeon in the Rupok Plains. That’s a day away from here on foot,” she said. She stuffed it back in her satchel, “However, I suggest heading to Tela first to recuperate, pick up some supplies and a map,” She motioned to one of her other companions, who dug through his bag for a petal-shaped metal plates with holes at its narrow end where a coil passed through, “This should last you for a few days, each piece costs ten miqs.”

The girls waved goodbye with their thanks, but Priestess Lipika had wordier regards. “May the Goddess Amnesia guide you, your endeavours blessed, and your goals be viewed worthy under her watch,” she paused for a moment, meeting their eyes, her tone less formal. “I can only hope your friend is right. However, it’s dangerous to place belief in tales—no one is truly sure about the purposes of these dungeons. We three wish you luck, and hope to be reunited someday, safe travels.”

They soon split up in opposite directions, separated by the great wall.

Journeying through the desert’s night was a breeze compared to its mornings. The wind was chilly, but they were far more equipped for that problem. So for now, they decided to enjoy what the other side of the Deyja desert offered. They craned their necks up to admire the sky. The stars shone bright enough for them to see, while the sands washed once again into a midnight blue.

Cassandra took in the unique fluidity of the rock formations, many of them looking like an explosion of lava, frozen in mid air. Scarlet noticed a growing number of lakes. Despite her curiosity, she made no attempts approaching one, deciding to heed one of the priestess’ warnings—the namuh seemed to have discovered mating, and their sleep schedule had taken a tumble in the weeds. She stuck to Lipika’s word of following the rose colored path, one that can only be seen in the dark. Scarlet found amusement in Alodia’s first reaction seeing this so-called “path.” Her accent thickened, volume heightened, and eyebrows scrunched.

The rose colored path was not in fact, rose colored, at least according to Alodia. To everyone else, they expected pink, and those expectations were met. However, Alodia was a touch too obsessive with the specificity, emphasizing that since the expression was first used in the book “Clairmagno’s Footnotes for the Sun,” and taking into the consideration that the author, Clairomagno, was from Yin—a rose colored path would’ve meant that it was blue, not pink, and that the phrase in the original text had a far more melancholic tone. The quote “Humankind chose the rose colored path of innovation and evolution” was taken out of context, popularized by Vastland’s former president Uniestado Annorte in one of his many, many speeches, further painting it into a positive phrase. However, due to the fact that it was written from the point-of-view of the sun, an omnipotent lens that—

While Cassandra always had open ears for all things academic, Alodia has complained about this insignificant detail way too many times, and Cass was convinced that at this point Alodia just liked hearing herself talk.

Tricia calmed the long, incessant rambling with the reminder that Lipika probably had no idea that ‘rose colored path’ even had a meaning outside of just referring to a pink road as ‘rose colored’, “Fair point.”

Azazel remained silent, eyes uncharacteristically drowsy despite the one in the group who can factually, not theoretically, stay hyper in both activeness and awareness for over three days. Case in point, everything that happened during what Azazel refers to their A.O.I. era, where they actually had to stay in ‘Areas of Interest’ for five to seven days, killing namuhs and little else, only to come back to school to write an academic report about it. She would surge through their battles with insurmountable speed, rivalling the winds, leaving the green planes covered in sheets of shards. That reduced a usual five day AOI mission into a three day one.

When Tricia asked if she needed medicine, or if she had an open wound that Tricia didn’t see during an earlier inspection, Azazel shook her head and rubbed her belly, which made an all too familiar noise.

Tricia rubbed gentle circles around her team mate’s back, and in her most mother-like voice yet, said, “Just a little longer, she said that it would be just a night’s walk,” she flicked her wrist, her loose watch snapping back into place, “And would you look at that, a quarter to midnight.”

They directed their focus back to the road, and soon enough, they picked up their pace when they saw a beacon of light in the darkness. Lipika said that if they saw a green pole with a lit up torch, they were only about twenty miles away from the post. They were close, so close. Food, a roof on top of their head, and a good warm bath were all within their reach.

Twenty miles from the green pole was a blizzard.

Its flame soon succumbed to an icy death.