The air was hot and arid where they landed. There was sand as far as they could see. The sun blazed above them without any cloud coverage. Beads of sweat immediately formed on their foreheads; it was not the ideal location to arrive.

Xera had two sets of goggles with dark lenses out of her bag. She handed one to Pluto who quickly equipped them.

“At least now we won’t have to worry about going blind. Hopefully, we can find this temple before we dehydrate.” Xera said.

“Why don’t we pull out the stones and see if they can give us any indication of where the temple might be,” Pluto replied. “ It worked in the library, why couldn’t it work again?”

“That’s a good idea, but we should keep the stones away from each other just in case the Cult is anywhere near here.”

The duo took twenty steps in the opposite direction of each other. Xera unwrapped her stone first. She was given the boxy, rainbow-colored stone. In her hands, it had made her feel the same way Pluto did when he first inspected it; as though a sun was rising inside of her after a long night. The feeling shocked her but didn’t distract her from her mission. She held the stone out in her flat palm, but the stone didn’t move an inch. She walked around with it for a moment, but she realized that it wasn’t going to do anything so she wrapped it back in its cloth and returned it to her bag.

During this time, Pluto unwrapped his stone. The stone was the one made of various shades of blue and felt wet to the touch. He was thankful for the stone’s coolness.

At least I didn’t get the one that burnt.

He placed the stone in his hand and it didn’t move. He looked over to Xera and saw that she was moving around and decided to try the same thing. He moved forward away from her and to his surprise, it moved ever so slightly. He thought for a moment that it was a fluke so he walked a little further and it moved slightly in the same direction.

“Over here!” He called out to Xera with a wave.

She walked briskly over to him.

“It is moving slightly. The temple must be that way.” He pointed in the direction the stone was moving.

“Well, let’s make it as quickly as possible without exhausting ourselves.”

She took out a canteen of water and they both took a quick swig before returning it to her bag.

“We have to try and make it last, but try not to pass out on me.”

On Nix Berdra the weather was usually chilly. Pluto spent many frosty days tending the ice fields or camping through frozen nights, building a tolerance to the cold. Now that he was in the scorching heat, he was not having a good time. As the two set forward, there were many times he would reach into his pocket, where the stone was, not only to make sure they were going in the right direction but to feel the sweet relief of the coolness of the stone.

The path they followed was initially flat, but as they traversed across the desert the sand grew on both sides of them. It started as small dunes, then like a hill, then eventually like a wall; leaving them at the bottom of the valley. The stone pointed them forward, so to the path they kept.

The valley seemed endless. The stone wasn’t feeling as cool as it used to and the water was running low. The sun gave no mercy as it beat against them. Pluto’s eyes struggled to stay open.

“Don’t fall!” A voice called out.

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Pluto snapped awake.

“What did you say?” He asked Xera.

“I didn’t say anything.” She replied.

“I swear I heard something.”

They walked a little farther when Pluto heard another voice.

“Turn back!” The voice called.

Pluto looked all around. He searched above the wall and still found nothing.

“You sure you didn’t hear that?” He asked Xera.

“I didn’t hear a thing.”

Pluto gripped the stone in his pocket and didn’t let go. The pair continued forward at a reduced pace. Xera wiped the sweat from her forehead and rubbed her eyes. She thought she saw a few figures just on the horizon.

“Do you see that?” She pointed.

“All I see is sand.” He said plainly.

“There are figures out there! Maybe they can help us.”

She took off running as best as she could in the sand.

“Stop her!” The mysterious voice said.

“Xera wait!” He called but was too late.

Pluto took after her, but was too exhausted and overheated to keep pace. Xera arrived where she saw the figures. There were three little girls standing in the valley. They each had pink hair cutely spun in curls and sporting a white bow. There were smiles on their faces, but something off about them Xera didn’t notice at first.

“Are you here to help us?” The girls asked, in unison.

“What kind of help do you need?”

“Our sister was playing with us, but then she fell into this lake and we can’t get her. Please, help us!”

As the triplets mentioned a lake, one suddenly appeared beside them. There was another little girl with pink hair, wildly splashing to stay afloat. Without thinking, Xera jumped in after her. The girl fell under the water and Xera swam and swam but couldn’t reach the girl.

Her mouth filled with water but burned and scratched in her throat.

“Just a little further,” she thought.

She grit her teeth and with a kick of her legs, she was able to extend her fingers around the girl's ankle. As she did she felt something pull her back. She was out of the water and sitting on the valley floor. The girls were gone, as was the lake, and Pluto was standing above her, covered in sand. She shrieked when she saw that in her hand wasn’t a little girl beside her, but instead, it was a bone that had long been dry and scorched. She tossed the bone over the wall of sand.

“What happened?!” She screamed.

“When I followed after you, I couldn’t find you. There were three little girls with devilish grins on their faces. I had the feeling something was very wrong. I looked in the sand and saw the bottom of your boots and thought they did something to you. Thankfully, I was able to pull you out. Those girls seemed to just disappear.”

Xera recounted how she met them and they begged for help. She told him that she thought there was water the girl was drowning in.

Her voice shook as she said, “It felt so real. I think this heat is getting to me. I wish that Nevus would’ve given us a map or something. This desert feels endless; are we still going the right way?”

Pluto pulled the stone out and it was moving forward, shaking more than it had before.

Just a little farther. He heard the voice again as he returned the stone to his pocket.

“Just a little farther.” He said with a smile.

He helped her up and continued on. After a couple of hundred yards, the valley opened up to a wide, squared area. A wall of shimmering air moved before them, like heat coming off a sidewalk on a hot day. Pluto pulled the stone again from his pocket and it shot out of his hand and flew through the wall of air. The shimmering dispersed and before them stood a large, square building.

The building had red walls and a series of black, stone steps leading to the entranceway. The temple had a seven-tier roof with blue eaves. In the yard leading to the steps, there were stone statues. The statues had pointed ears and long hair and seemed to be playing a variety of instruments. As air went through the statues, Pluto and Xera swore they could hear soft, sad musical notes coming from them.

Pluto took time to study them as he walked passed them.

He said, “They’re so life-like.”

“I wonder if they lived around here,” Xera commented.

Pluto surveyed his surroundings, shrugged, and then made his way to the steps. They both climbed the steps and entered the temple.

The walls inside the temple were colored albrecht blue. The air around them smelled like rain. There were dark-stained pieces of wood trim that lined the bottoms of the walls; the grain of the wood seemed to move like waves.

On the floor in front of a wall with a tear-shaped hole was the stone. Pluto picked it off the floor and placed it in the recess. There was a mist that sprayed from the roof and a figure stood before them with a blue-hued light around him.