In the middle of an endless ocean of desolate cracked earth, there was a single monument taller than the occasional stubborn gnarled bush hanging on for dear life for the yearly rains.

It was brown, a bit darker than the surrounding tan land, reddish from a distance. Like everything else, it radiated light-distorting waves of heat as the relentless red sun beat down on it. And while there was no life in this strange land larger than a tiny lizard that pissed dust, if one listened hard enough, they could hear the strange chant of a powerful foreign Alia.

“Scooby-dooby doo, where are you? We got some work to do now…”

Truly terrifying.

***Tom Graves***

“You know we got a mystery to solve, so Scooby-Doo, get ready for your act. Don’t hold back.”

Tom was sitting crosslegged in the shadow of the truck, singing the theme song to Scooby Doo.

Why was he singing the theme song to a beloved children’s show?

Well, when you can count the amount of time you’ve got to live in hours, you need to manage the stress any way you can.

Tom had pulled some of the plastic sheeting out of the truck-bed and placed it to further shield him from reflected sunlight that threatened to cook him in the shade.

Now the only thing he had to worry about was the insane temperatures. He didn’t have a thermometer, but he would guess the temperature in the shade was approximately…Devil’s ass-crack.

Tom was sweating profusely just to stay conscious, and he only had a limited supply of that. There was nothing to drink in the car beside a bit of gas, oil, and antifreeze.

None of those sounded like a good idea.

Tom remembered hearing that the human body dies after three days without water.

But that’s three days without water at room temperature.

Tom gave himself one day.

Twenty-four hours until he simply dried up like a raisin and died…or became so dehydrated that he could no longer try to get water, which was the same thing.

So Tom kept calm by singing songs from his childhood, temporarily escaping the looming dread while he thought furiously.

“You know if you come through you’re gonna have yourself a Scooby snack!”

Okay, shelter, water, food. These three things are what I need to stay alive. Without the truck to hide under, Tom would’ve most likely already bit it from heatstroke.

It was HOT out there.

Shelter is…sort of under control. Next comes water. Where do you look for water in the desert?

Tom…was drawing a blank. There weren’t any cactuses to juice, and he was fairly sure that was a myth, anyway.

Dig down to the water table?

Did deserts have a water table? If Tom had to guess, he would guess no.

What would Bear Grylls do? Probably take inventory and come up with a plan with the best chance of success.

Tom opened his eyes and glanced over his assembled tools from the now-defunct truck. He had, in no particular order: The four crypts, a revolver that had been strapped beneath the driver’s seat, a pair of jumper cables, a car battery, several rear-view mirrors, a toolkit with a couple socket wrenches, some plastic tubing, various metal scrap, metal sabatons, the upholstery from the seating – he hadn’t removed it, but was counting it – bear spray and a change of clothes in the glove compartment.

Tom was looking at Jacob’s usual white T-shirt when a thought occurred to him.

You know, whenever I’ve been in deep shit, there’s always been someone around that knows what to do.

When he was a child, it was his grandparents, when he was first breaking bad and running from the cops, it had been Jacob the Cokehead. When he was dealing with them murderous knights, it had been Grant actually talking to them, and when it came to fighting them…Carol.

Now he was truly alone, and would have to survive on his own merits.

“Wark,” Suzie croaked from the comfort of her perch on the back of the driver seat. The giant purple demon frog familiar responded to his thoughts, seemingly insulted by not being counted. Suzie was about the size of a backpack and purple, with horns that did little to make her less squishable.

“Excuse me, do you know how to survive in the desert? Because that would be awesome.”

“…Wark,” she said, radiating a bit of sullen petulance.

“Yeah, didn’t think so.”

Tom heaved a sigh, his eyes lingering on Jacob’s shirt. Something clicked.

Tom shoved his hand into his pocket. There was a ball of something in there. He pulled it out and opened his hand.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

A scrap of white cloth.

Tom matched it up to the collar of Jacob’s favorite brand of white shirts.

It wasn’t the exact same shirt, but it was the same size and brand. It was definitely one of Jacob’s shirts.

From a dream.

“…Holy shit, I might not die.”

Tom reviewed his tools again with a new perspective.

It was like a game idle minds played, ‘What would you bring with you to a deserted island, if you could bring one thing?’

Most people said something cheeky, like a pretty girl, but when people were truly bored, they would explore the most practical solutions.

Things like radios, water purifiers, multi-tools, that sort of thing. When people were included, Bear Grylls made the list, since it was often better to have someone who knew what they were doing.

I mean, you could eat Bear Grylls, sure, but it would probably be better to just let him catch some fish, make a water purifier out of some plants and start a fire. He’s multipurpose.

Tom glanced down at the scrap of fabric in his hand.

If he could pull this off, he needed maximum benefit, because he wouldn’t get another shot at it. That meant he needed a solid plan.

Tom tapped his chest. He wasn’t sure, but it passed the gut check that if he had more soul pulses in his chest when he went to sleep, he might be able to bring back bigger things from the past.

Option 1: Get the truck working again. There was a possibility that Tom could get it to fall onto its tires by digging out under it and felling it like a tree.

Benefit: Potentially able to relocate a hundred miles or more, to a place much more habitable, with water, shelter and food.

Cons: Tom didn’t know the first thing about fixing trucks. He didn’t know if the truck would run once it was set right, or if it was totaled by the fall. There was a good possibility that all the work he did freeing the truck from the dirt would amount to nothing. Additionally he may not be within a hundred miles of somewhere more habitable, and even if he were, he had no idea which direction it would be in.

Conclusion: There were many points of failure, and it did not offer an immediate, long-term solution. Rejected.

Option 2: Research. Look up how to survive in the desert on a computer in his dream. Tom had last woken up on the horse on Earth. As long at the couple minutes of concussed inactivity after the crash didn’t count, Tom should wake up on the horse again.

If he followed the exact same path as the night before he should get back to his house with ten hours of research time or more. After that it wouldn’t be too hard to do some research in a library or something. Tom’s cell phone had bit the dust a while back on account of Ken.

Tom scowled when he thought of Ken.

Benefit: A large wad of verified survival info could provide numerous long-term benefits and advice, which could prove valuable in dozens of ways Tom couldn’t begin to imagine because of his complete ignorance of desert survival.

Con: No immediate solution. And Tom would be starting in a weakened state the next day.

Conclusion: A bit of research would be easy to do if he borrowed someone’s phone, whether at gunpoint or by asking nicely. The option stacks well with other options since all ten available hours needn’t be spent researching. Accepted.

Option 3: Magic the problem away. This took one of two paths. Either he could try to bring a bit of summoning ink back with him and call up Luz, or…he could try to bring back the book.

Crypt Vocabulary, and Material Spell Synthesis.

If there was any spell Tom had memorized, it was the one to summon Luz. He didn’t need the other book, per se. there was a ton more information in it that would be helpful, but most of it was about the technical aspects of turning souls into soul-pulses, and while that was handy, there wasn’t much around here to kill for profit, nor was there much to spend it on.

Nothing saying I can’t summon a hypothetical Luz in my Dream and ask her some questions. Another form of research.

Benefit: Should Tom get Crypt Vocabulary, and Material Spell Synthesis, he was fairly confident he could hack together a spell that created water…and possibly one that fixed the truck. Especially if he asked Luz to show him the spell phrase for it. Which he could then mark down in the book, then bring back to reality.

Con: if he was mistaken about bringing things back from his dream, this was a bit of a moot point.

Conclusion: Worth a shot, possibly tacked onto the end of Research. He could attempt to memorize a water-creating spell-phrase independently.

The question is, how big of an object can I bring back from a Dream?

Tom had no idea, and until that was determined, he’d have to assume it was very small.

Tom glanced at his crypts.

The shield crypt was blazing with energy. He had to assume it was at full charge, given the number of people who’d died, been snagged by Suzie, then redirected into the gold. The debt repayment crypt was empty, of course. The ghost walk and healing crypts were about…a quarter full, when compared the shield crypt.

That gave Tom a visual estimate of about seventy-five soul pulses.

Tom had no idea what the value of seventy-five soul pulses was, honestly.

Well, it could animate about two skeletons, assuming I didn’t accidentally overcharge them.

Tom glanced at the lizard sunning itself in the distance, Weighing his options.

If he could summon a spirit to inhabit the lizard’s corpse, he could get a tireless skeletal worker…that could only move maybe a pound or so.

Tom dismissed the idea. There was most likely a more cost-effective way to spend the soul pulses.

If the power I use to Dream is Soul Pulses, then what happens if I supercharge the dream? Could I bring back something bigger than a scrap of cloth? Maybe something the size of a book?

…Worth a shot.

Okay, so what questions are we going to ask Google, and what questions are we going to ask Luz?

***DREAM***

“Oh cool, deserts can have water tables, although they can be as deep as…thirty thousand feet. Damn.”

We’ll call that plan B.

The guy lending Tom his phone gave him a weird sideways look as he drove.

“I’ve got a class project at school, ‘how to survive in the desert with nothing but a broken-down pickup truck.’” Tom explained.

“Oh, I see. So digging isn’t an option?”

“Probably not. I don’t even have a shovel. I mean, not unless I had some kind of tireless worker who didn’t need to eat or sleep.”

Tom rubbed his chin. No, would probably take too long. I’d still be dead before a skeleton that size pulled it off. It’s something to think about if I find a larger animal though.

“Hah, yeah, right,” The driver said with a slanted smile.

Tom kept thumbing through desert survival tips, accumulating them at a speed that only Google could offer.

I wish I could bring the internet with me.

Apparently the night is so freaking cold it creates condensation, which can then be wrung out of clothes and sucked on, plus plastic sheets collect a lot of condensation…Damp ground, vegetation, dry river beds are all signs there may be water underground…

Tom cocked a brow when he saw how cold a desert could get.

I really hope I’m not freezing to death right now. He was curled in the cab of the truck with as much of the upholstery cushioning him as possible.

He watched a couple youtube videos of people finding water and lighting fires, then realized the desert these people were in didn’t look like the one he was in.

With a little more searching, Tom found the closest desert on Earth that looked similar were some patchy parts of the Saraha and the Atacama desert in South America.

Ooh, I can figure out my latitude by tracking the sun and then head away from the equator. That’s as good a direction as any.

“Here we are.” The driver said, pointing at the road sign for Reese’s trailer park.

“Thank you very much, you literally saved my life here,” Tom said with a grin as he handed the cell phone back.

“No problem,” The truck driver said as Tom hopped out, giving him a farewell honk as the semi rumbled to life.