Their trek continued for several more days with nothing to see but sand. They only stopped to fuel the pickup and to hunt for food. At night they slept in the bed of the pickup with R2 patrolling. The cactus and edible plants had gotten harder to find but they did run across the occasional small oasis. Unfortunately, these isolated patches of green drew monsters to them.
The first one they bypassed entirely as it was surrounded by giant scorpions as big as the pickup. The second one had less creatures and some honking and revving the engine scared them off. Chuck had no idea how far away the next tower was but following the stone path was easy enough. The magic or whatever it was that kept it clear was still working.
They took turns driving and Tess was now an expert at it. They talked and listened to music to relieve the boredom and monotony of the trip. So far, they hadn’t had to fight anything as whenever a strong creature appeared, they could just outrun it. There still weren’t any monsters faster than the pickup but Chuck crossed his fingers anyway.
The pickup and R2 were still holding up fine but Chuck was starting to get tired of looking at the endless wastes. If it wasn’t for Tess, he probably would have gone crazy by now. When they found some, the food was never enough and always tasted bad. The sand got everywhere and he always felt like he needed a bath. The most they could do was pour the water flask over their head to wash off.
When the sun was at it’s highest the pickup would start getting dangerously hot. Sometimes he had to shut it off and wait until things cooled down and other times they were able to keep going. During the next week they started seeing evidence of civilization. Random ruins would appear in the distance, mostly covered in sand except the tallest structures.
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They appeared to be made of stone and Chuck wanted to explore them but Tess talked some sense into him. More than likely monsters called the ruins their home and it was too dangerous to get very far from the path. Finally, a set of ruins appeared right next to the road so Chuck was able to get out and look at them. R2 stayed close by and they had their weapons out just in case.
The structures were all made of stone with most having fallen down. Some of the stone blocks had markings but Chuck couldn’t decipher them. Tess also didn’t know what they meant. After an hour or so they continued on their way. It was a nice change of pace though and Chuck had enjoyed it. Every once in a while another sandstorm would rise up. Sometimes it would be in the distance and other times they had to stop and wait it out inside the pickup.
The path seemed to be going in a straight line but with all the hills and sand dunes it was hard to see into the distance. At the end of the second week, a tall structure could be seen in the distance along with some mountains. This caused immense relief as they both could feel their journey through the wastes was finally coming to an end.
As they cleared a last set of dunes, they could see a duplicate of the first tower. The sandy wastes turned back into scrub land which seemed to go on to the mountains in the distance. The tower sat beside the stone path, all by itself. It didn’t appear there was another graveyard or anything else around it. Chuck was starting to get a little nervous about what they might find in the second tower and what their next task would be but it didn’t seem like they had much of a choice if they wanted to get home.