Vroooooooooom. Vrooooooooooom. Vrooooom.

The truck handled nicely even on patchy terrains. They had left Terra about thirty minutes ago and were reaching land uncultivated by humans. This resulted in large patches of uneven grass and tall trees that nearly reached the heavens.

“Maaaan mobiles are so convenient, but tell me... What do we do if this baby runs out of juice?” Yadon asks.

“We’ll be walking.” Jace mentions, keeping his eyes straight ahead on what was in front of him.

“So these glowing rocks powers this thing, huh? And that’s the whole reason we’re going to Ingrann?”

“Yeah. I’m not one for field trips, so I want to leave as soon as possible.”

“I think it’ll be nice to visit another region. We’ll be able to learn all about their culture and the way they live.” Claire states with excitement.

Of course, Claire chose to sit next to Jace in the passenger seat while in the middle row seated Isaac and Keianna and in the rear Noel and Yadon. Laughter could be heard from Yadon and Noel as they teased Claire secretly.

“The only culture that one should wish to learn about is the culture of the rich. You peasants have to walk everywhere because you can’t afford a vehicle, but I have multiple.” Noel smirks.

“I doubt anyone wants to learn to be incompetent enough to have to depend on butlers to perform daily tasks.” Keianna mentions, rolling her eyes and keeping her arms crossed as she looked out the window.

“The world is a very big place, Noel. It could do you some good to want to learn about other ways of life.” Claire persuades.

“I’m all for it. I’m curious about the people here. Basilisks… that’s what they’re called here, right? The lizard people.” Isaac asks.

“That’s correct. The Basilisk is known for their poison abilities and for being very sneaky. They mostly resemble humans though with a few clear cut differences such as the slits in their eyes and forked tongues.” Claire informs.

The ride continued on for a while, eventually, the terrain started to change once more and the ground became sand. The truck’s tires could manage, but the temperature started to increase as well. It encouraged Jace to turn on the air.

“Ugggh… I feel so stiff! I need to stretch man, pull over!” Yadon demanded.

“Are you crazy? We have something to accomplish.” Jace reminds.

“I don’t care, I’m bored!”

“For once I agree with him. I need something to drink, I’m parched.” Noel sighed.

“You’re just going to have to suck it up. It won’t be much-” Jace came to a stop as purple liquid splatted against the window, blocking their view.

“What the!?” Claire jumped.

The vehicle soon came to a stop.

“Everybody out and keep on your toes. We might have a fight on our hands.” Jace warns.

“Hell yeah, this is just what I needed!”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Be careful guys. We don’t know what could be out there.” Isaac mentions.

One by one the doors opened and everyone excited, looking around as they stepped down into the sand.

The sand was warm to the touch and it almost felt as if one wrong move and they would be swallowed. They have just entered the desert of Ingrann and haven’t even reached the main parts and they were already running into trouble.

“Where're the bad guys at!? I wanna fight!” Yadon yells.

“Remember we have a peace agreement with them. But, we can’t let them murder us if that’s their intent.” Jace adds.

Further ahead, but now in plain sight was one of the Basilisk, standing at about six feet. He didn’t have on any clothes besides the loin cloth covering his legs. He looked nearly human aside from the slits in his eyes. Saliva dripped from his mouth as he allowed his forked tongue to slip out from his mouth.

“Hssssssh.” The Basilisk hissed at them, its eyes shining a shade of yellow.

“Time to die lizard man!” Yadon shouts as he runs ahead, summoning his weapon; his ax.

“Don’t rush in you idiot!” Jace warns.

Yadon clenches his weapon as he swings it towards the creature, though the Basilisk appears to be nimble able to easily dodge and then slip behind its foe.

“It’s fast.”

Soon the Basilisk revealed its fangs and then went in to bite Yadon which made everyone gasp. However, its teeth were broken as soon as it managed to clasp its jaws on his skin. There’s a slight sheen to Yadon’s skin it seems.

“Nice try, but no cigar!” Yadon smirks before grabbing ahold of the monster’s head and then tosses it into the air like it was a rag doll. While it descended back down to land he swings his weapon and cleaved the monster in two… blood pouring down onto the sands and staining his ax.

“Disgusting….!” Noel complains from the sight of the blood. “Why did I have to come here!?”

“See, nothing to worry about!” Yadon smiles as he puts away his weapon.

“You shouldn’t be so dense, Yadon. If you didn’t stop it from biting you, you’d have been poisoned.” Jace scolds him.

“My battle instincts lead me to victory! Hahaha!” Yadon laughs.

However… near Noel a Basilisk burrowed itself from the ground, emerging behind him as it sunk its fangs into his neck.

“Huh!?” Noel winced.

The Basilisk’s venom started to inject into Noel’s bloodstream… the purple toxin starting to disturb his body’s natural rhythm. As the monster released its grip, Noel fell to the ground and clutched his neck before wincing in pain.

“It… it burns! Ugggh!” The pain became too much for him and soon he collapsed onto the warm sand.

“Noel!” Yadon shouted. “Why you little!” Yadon charged off but was soon taken aback when he saw more Basilisk starting to emerge from the ground.

“An ambush! They knew we were coming…?” Jace questions.

One of the Basilisk smiled before it started to speak. “The vibrations were muffled, but we could sense an unusual disturbance. So…. we wanted to play. Hehe.”

“My venom will kill him in a day. He doesn’t have much time to live… but that goes for all of you.”

“Why are you guys doing this!? Aren’t we on the same side here!?” Isaac yelled he was upset but mostly confused.

“You humans are far out of the loop… we’re just having fun!”

One of them charges for Isaac, instead of reacting he freezes up.

These guys are fast… If he bites me it's over… I’m afraid!

If Isaac wasn’t going to react someone else would. In a mere instance as the Basilisk prepared to strike its throat was slit, blood draining out rapidly before it fell down. There were a few sparks of lightning to signify that Keianna had used her ability.

“You have a deathwish or something!?” Keianna yelled.

“You saved me… Thank you.” Isaac felt as if he was out of breath from the amount of fear that was imbued into him.

“Thank nothing. It left itself open. I didn’t do it for you. You better get your head in the game if you don’t want to end up like them.” Keianna said bluntly.

“Looks like we have a fight on our hands. We’ll subdue them here. Don’t let yourself be bitten. Claire secures Noel and get him in the truck.” Jace instructs.

“Got it. We’re also going to need to clean that stuff off our ride!” Claire mentions.

“We’ll deal with that after.”

There was a lot of them. Normally it’d be smarter to run, but that ’d leave them open. Anyone attack could end them and so they had to be killed here and now.

Jace ran towards them, unloading punches and kicks against them to stagger them before he aimed at their throats with enough force to render them unconscious. One tried to sneak up behind him but as it attempted to bite into him it phased through.

“Hsssh!?”

“Mirage Step.” Jace states before striking the back of its neck with a chop to knock it out.

Yadon appeared to be safe, his weapon was enough to keep them at bay and not give them an opening. Keianna however, was killing them quicker than he could count.

All in one smooth motion she was able to zip around and cause enough damage to their throats to leave them immobile or dead. This was one chick that you didn’t want to make mad.

I can’t do a thing… I can’t do a damn thing…!

“Isaac! Help me lift Noel!” Claire shouts to break him out of his rut.

“R-right.” Isaac moves over to assist her, picking up the boy as they stuffed him onto the seat of the truck. The poor boy was shaking the entire time, not even mumbling.

“That’s all of them… now to remove that poison.” Jace states using the arm of his sleeve to wipe the window off.

“Hell yeah, we fucked them all up! Who’s next!?” Yadon looks around.

“Get inside. We’re leaving, now!” Jace demands.

As everyone gets in the car, Yadon looks over at Noel who appears to be sweating heavily. He then placed a hand on his forehead and felt that he was burning up intensely.

“So… Noel feels like a candle right about now. How do we save him?” Yadon asks.

“I don’t know…” Jace admits.