image [https://i.imgur.com/bJKmwjr.jpg]

Fabulosa stared at the statues. “It’s kinda odd. Their heads are gone, but they still have hands and arms. You would have thought they’d worn away sooner.”

“The Romans used to make statues with removable heads in case of sudden leadership changes.”

Fabulosa laughed. “Oh, I get it. Sudden leadership changes?”

“Assassinations shouldn’t be harder on public works than they already are. In case of a coup, the civil servants only needed to switch heads.”

“We should do the same in Hawkhurst. Government efficiency at its finest.”

Watching Fabulosa climbing the dune made me wonder where she got her energy. Giving my legs a rest, I inspected the statues from afar. Sometimes, being too close to something makes you miss the big picture.

A flaring yellow cloud interrupted my thoughts. Plumes of dust erupted from an embankment beneath the statues as five brown reptiles wriggled from the sand.

Name

Sandcastle Newt

Level

14

Difficulty

Easy (green)

Health

370/370

Covered with a mottled brown camouflage texture, crocodile-sized lizards emerged. They had snub-noses, powerful jaws, and limbs jointed like humans, but they rushed us like animals.

Fabulosa kept one lizard at bay with Tangling Roots. Another grappled her, and I backstabbed it until it released its hold. I tried using my Wall of Wind to blind them, but their eyelids repelled our efforts no matter how much sand we blew around.

The trick to facing many monsters revolved around surviving the beginning attacks. The battle got easier if players could withstand the front-load of damage as monsters dropped off. This ambush presented the same issue, so we minimized our damage intake by constantly retreating.

Fabulosa fired up her saber with Ignite Weapon, and its flaming damage-over-time effects helped sell the Phantom Blade’s illusory attacks.

Fabulosa and I fought side-by-side, and the creatures weren’t smart enough to encircle us. Though the reptiles showed a green threat level, inflicting 370 health took time without our Aggression doubling our damage, which threw off our timing. At level 20, a big hit amounted to 40-some damage, and none of our crits broke 100.

The first one to die stepped between us. Whichever way it turned, it opened itself up to a backstab. Focusing on one creature had cost us so much damage I used my robe and healing amulet to land two instant-cast Restores. Health potions and Rejuvenates sustained us through the barrage of jaws and claws.

Deserts offered plenty of space to withdraw, so we relinquished our position to buy more time. Our health bars never dipped below 30 percent because we took care not to press ourselves. Our tactics wore them down.

After the second one fell, we expected the fight to get easier, but three more lizards pulled themselves out of the sand. They emerged from the same row of holes beneath a sandy overhang resembling modern bunkers.

Fabulosa Slipstreamed away from a lizard and cast a Fireball at the newcomers. She followed with a Lightning Bolt, which singed three at once.

I fought them off as well as I could, but her repositioning meant every assailant fell on me, so I Slipstreamed beside her to spread out the aggro. I used the extra seconds to target a Compression Sphere at a cluster, which blew them down a dune.

The repositioning stopped the lizards from swamping us. We held our ground under the hot noon sun and headless statues. Our efforts might have pleased a forgotten god of war.

We kept withdrawing as the lizards pursued. My spear and Fabulosa’s flaming sword brought down a third and fourth opponent, and when only four remained, their tempo faltered. We took advantage of this and finished the last of the original attackers. Only the three newcomers remained.

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The thunderclap of Fabulosa’s Compression Sphere erupted between the newts. The spell sent two of them on their backs while we tag-teamed the third.

When the two returned to find their companion dead, they fled. Sand rooster-tailed behind the lizards as they scrambled back to their holes. I gave chase with my five-minute Slipstream cooldown still ticking.

As we neared the burrows, their alignment looked like a window—not a natural opening. Fabulosa yelled back to me as she closed the distance. “I’m going in after them.”

I didn’t object. Fabulosa’s health pool was full, and it seemed an excellent chance to get out of the sun.

It made a tight squeeze, but she disappeared into the opening. I dove in after her and landed in a space the size of a walk-in closet.

I dropped headfirst onto a mass of scaly brown reptiles, searching for its chewy center—Fabulosa. The encounter made up the stuff of nightmares—a smothering, close-quarter constriction.

The lizards tangled her up in seconds. Their fangs reduced her to 60 percent health. Grapples countered Slipstream so she could do nothing but writhe against the knot of muscle.

After casting a Restore and Rejuvenate, I impaled scaly skin until one released its fangs from my partner. But by then, Fabulosa had lost half her health.

I targeted another lizard, one that prevented her from spellcasting. When I killed it, Fabulosa tossed a couple of heals on herself.

When the second released its fangs, her health loss abated. The last two reptiles committed themselves to grappling, so my backstabs made quick work of them. By the time they died, Fabulosa fell to 28 health. She wriggled away from the dead lizards, but the cramped space made it difficult.

Gasping for breath, she performed a Rest and Mend next to the bodies of our foes. Her nameplate had changed, and I announced the good news. “You reached level 21.”

Fabulosa looked shaken and didn’t react.

“Are you okay?”

Fabulosa had a glassy, faraway look in her eye. “If we need to watch Crimson’s video to remember our game, I hope I skip the parts when I’m fighting a smothering death.”

“It might be good to know you overcame your enemies.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d prefer to remember the fun times. That’s the whole point of vacations—making pleasant memories.”

“I suppose. Speaking of leisure time, let’s take a break here. It’s noon anyway. It’s getting too hot to travel.”

Fabulosa nodded.

There didn’t seem to be any way out of the little bunker, so I collected the six white cores, gutted the reptiles, and looked in vain for coins or items. I returned inside to find Fabulosa busy, brushing away sand from one of the stone walls.

“This is a door, Patch. It’s loose or something. I can jiggle it a little, but it won’t open.”

I cast Mineral Communion and concentrated on the images from the stone block. Flickering vignettes of people dressed in desert clothes moved in and out of the space.

“You’re right. It’s supposed to slide. There are rollers underneath, but there’s sand everywhere.”

“You ain’t kidding.”

“I can fix this—hold on.” I cast Dig and sucked up all the sand beneath the door.

“You excel in the out-of-combat utilities, that’s for sure.”

“It rounds out my backstabbing skills.”

“You have that too.” She winked as I sucked away more sand. I tried to move toward the door when I’d gotten it all, but it didn’t budge. My Magnetize spell showed it to be magnetically inert.

Fabulosa watched me strain. “What’s your strength?”

I wore no strength gear. “Um. It’s 15.”

Fabulosa raised her eyebrows as if impressed, but we both knew my strength stat fell far lower than hers. She tried not to smile. “Why don’t you let me try it?”

I blushed, deflated, and moved out of the way. “You remember I saved your life fifteen minutes ago, right?”

This time, Fabulosa smiled and nodded. “And you were so brave and manly when you did it.” She braced herself against the wall and pushed on the door. The stone block slid along the floor in a grinding stone-on-stone crunch, opening to a descending stairway. Her hair blew inward as the air pressure equalized. “Did I mention you were heroic?”

“Hush up, you.” I walked past her and cast Heavenly Favor and Presence.

She giggled and massaged my shoulders as she followed me down the stairs. “No, seriously, Patch, you’re my hero. You really, really are!”

The map interface registered a location change from the desert of Savarah to a place called Odum. We passed between crumbling sandstone megaliths as we descended. I got a sense, through Mineral Communion, that the block dimensions matched the size of moving vans, yet their surfaces only bore witness to the passing of time—the stones didn’t remember who placed them or for what purpose. To my disappointment, age had worn away the paint and hieroglyphics.

The stairs were narrow and steep—after a few dozen steps, we reached a small dead end. A broken refrigerator-sized block opened into another room. Someone had chipped a hole through the block to gain access. Mineral Communion gave me glimpses of activity.

“I’m seeing scenes of tomb robbers digging through this block. They’re in desert garb.”

“Can you tell if they’re human?”

I shrugged. “They have hands, but they’re covered from head to toe like nomads. Can’t tell.”

To the left of the door-block stood an alcove covered in sand. I bent over and ran my fingertips through the stuff, finding nothing but broken bits of undecorated pottery. I wished Mineral Communion worked on clay or ceramics. Anything mixed or reshaped gave me nothing but static, as if less sensate than natural stone.

“What’s that?” Fabulosa pointed to an odd shape in the alcove’s ceiling.

I looked up to where she pointed. Someone had affixed a clay pot into the ceiling and snapped it off. The shape reminded me of a broken lightbulb.

“There’s broken pottery in the sand but no scorpions, coins, seeds, or anything. Was the sandbox supposed to soften the pot’s fall?”

Fabulosa stuck her saber into a hole inside the broken pottery fixture. “Or maybe that’s where the sand came from.”

“You’re right. There’s a cavity. Breaking this pottery spills enough sand to lower the stone into the doorway. It’s a stone-age time vault.”

Fabulosa peered through the block’s borehole. She didn’t seem enthused by the prospect of an already-looted dungeon. “And thieves have already tunneled their way into it.”

“Who knows? Maybe we’ll have more bodies to warn us about traps.”

Fabulosa nodded at the possibility. She pulled out a glow stone and climbed over the broken block, sticking her head into the darkness.

“Has diving into lizards taught you nothing?”

Fabulosa laughed as she wriggled through the hole. “At least this one doesn’t have varmints. It’s probably safe.”