One month has passed since the battle to escape the coliseum in the Demi human Council. They had been traveling in the mountains, so they hadn't encountered too many beasts or people. They took time to recover and prepare for the final part of the journey.
Last Drop was the name of a desert city with high walls. The name was literal in the sense that surviving from this point forward would be almost impossible since there were very few water sources. Wild beasts and ruins were the only things that extended all the way to the east of the continent.
They were sitting in a bar, drinking some worm juice. It was a type of animal that lived in this zone. They were small when young, but the old ones got giant and ate prey in the desert.
"Ugh! This is disgusting…" Neo said as she kept drinking the worm juice. "So, what is the plan?"
"I would like to ask Kit, but you told us you have never been this far east before, right?"
"Yes, we are almost at the border of the land. Only ruins and savage beasts lie forward. If we're going to explore, we need to gather a lot of provisions. We could spend weeks without seeing water or animals."
Thanatos thought about their options. He had his black book, but there weren't any spells to make food or water. Lia was a shaman, and Kit had hunting experience, but it wasn't enough.
"We need a guide or some kind of traveler that can take us to the ruins of Rabase. I could try to summon something to fly fast, but it would be risky if someone saw it." He wanted to keep his necromantic power hidden.
After his battle with the coliseum fighters and Sertus, he felt he could summon a couple of new middle tier undead. But the undead don't have any tracking or survival skills since they are already dead. Undead Condor and Undead Worm, they don't seem very useful for this.
They decided to hire one of the locals as a guide. They were people with tracking skills who could guide them through the desert for a price. Treasure hunters and researchers from various places used their services. They entered the office to hire one. The receptionist gave them a piece of paper asking for the details of the trip.
How many people? How long would the incursion last? How much was he willing to pay? After putting all the details in the sheet, Thanatos agreed to use almost all the gold he had to make the offer big and attract more attention from the guides. They took quite a lot of gold from Underworld before leaving, and since Kit was in charge of money, he kept it safe.
"Here, we'll come back tomorrow to see if any group is interested in taking our request."
The receptionist made a copy and hung it on the wall of jobs. It read, "Looking for a team of guides to take three people to the ruins of Rabase. We'll investigate them, and the guides would act as escorts. The duration of the expedition is one month, and the pay will be 700 gold pieces."
"Uh, I guess we made the offer too good." He came back the next day after lunch. There was already a line of people asking to take the job. Dozens of guides and teams were eager to take the easy gold for a very simple job.
"You should have investigated more before posting the job."
"I forgot! You didn't think about that either! Let's start interviewing them."
Most of the guides were the same. They talked about their previous experience and the jobs they had. There were warriors, magic casters, hunters, spies, and everything in between. In the end, they chose the team that was more experienced and had a giant tortoise as their mobile base.
"Can turtles move fast in sand?" Kit asked.
"Hahaha, I get that a lot. She's a Sand Turtle; they can move in the sand almost as if they were swimming. It can get pretty fast; the wind moves your hair everywhere and the sand gets in your mouth. But we have a base with walls, so we can hide from any sandstorm."
"It seems that your people would be perfect for the job, Andel. You are hired." Thanatos gave the man a firm handshake and agreed to buy supplies and start the expedition tomorrow.
***
"GRRRUUUUHHHH!" Sandy made a noise as Andel and his men put the boxes with supplies on top of her shell.
"Easy girl, we are going to earn the food. Everyone, this is Sally, our Sand Turtle and mobile base." She was giant. Her jaw was so big that it could eat two whole men in one bite. On top of her shell, a makeshift house made of stone and bricks.
"How long is she?" Neo asked as she got closer to her head.
"I think about 100 and 150. I don't know the exact number; I bought her from a retired guide. He domesticated her, but he wasn't sure of her age either. Oh, be careful, lady; she gets angry easily and she could bite your hand!"
Neo put her hand in her face and pet her a couple of times. She had nothing to fear. She could tell exactly the nature of a beast as soon as she saw its face.
"You don't attack without a reason, but you like to take your time, right? Good girl."
"Uh, you have experience with animals, young lady?"
"Yes, she's a shaman, so don't freak out when she uses weird powers." Thanatos said as he helped put more boxes inside the base with Kit and the other guides.
"Anyway, let me introduce you to the rest of my crew." Andel recalled the others. "This is Fatema, our trap expert. Kamil, our medic, and Mansur, our hunter and tracker. "I'm the muscle and bodyguard; don't worry, not even a giant worm can touch you with me by your side."
"Pleasure to meet you all. We're counting on you to take us to Rabase."
"May I ask a question? What are you exactly going to do here? I heard some researchers have gone there in the past, but they didn't discover anything." Mansur was the most curious, as he had been in the desert the longest. "Do you have some means to find something among the ruins?"
"Well, I can't say with certainty, but I think we can at least try."
"Don't get on their business, Mansur; they are paying more than enough for a whole month. We don't want to start on the wrong foot. "Everyone come in, we should start now that the sun is up." Andel changed the subject, and they got inside Sally to the east.
She was really fast. She was moving her legs along the sand as if she was being propelled by it. Thanatos thought it looked almost like a tread mill, but instead of staying in one place, Sally's body was moving at a rapid speed. Amazing! I don't think I'll ever discover all the types of strange creatures in this world.
After a couple of hours, they stopped in the middle of nowhere. There was only desert in all directions. One could get lost and die of dehydration. Mansur jumped onto the sand and began to inspect it.
"Can he really tell just by touching?"
"Not just with touch, but with sight and hearing. He's absorbing all the information. Creatures that have passed recently: how long did they stay here? Where they go after?"
"Incredible. I have some tracking skills, but I could never use them in this desert." Kit was amazed at Mansur's expertise.
"Hahaha, this old man has been learning all about this desert in the last thirty years. It would be shameful if someone as young as you could do the same; his ego would never allow it."
"We're close, about two more hours to the southeast. There haven't been any animals around this part, so we should be safe for today." He climbed back into Sally's shell, and she resumed her race.
Just as Mansur said, they arrived at the ruins of an old country. Rabase was once a land for mages and wizards of all kinds. They were adept at magic and everything around it. They developed several kinds of magic artifacts and spells, but those were lost in the great catastrophe. Over fifty years ago, Zek the necromancer came to this land and destroyed the people in his search for power.
That is the history that people now know. Thanatos asked the guides what they knew about Rabase, but that was all they heard. Even with that sort of information, Thanatos could sense something was wrong.
Zek told me this was his land; he hadn't come here from another place. If he really was a foreigner, why would he mention Rabase so many times in his fight in the Capital of Selus thirty years ago? He talked about it with more passion than anything else, not like some place he destroyed himself. The fall of this land had something to do with his revenge.
He couldn't see the whole picture with so little information. He had to explore and find out more with his own hands. They settled camp on some ruins behind a large wall with a roof.
After leaving Sally to rest with Mansur to keep her company, the others went to explore. Since the land was full of ruins, keeping a sense of direction was far easier. The buildings were eroded by sand and time.
Fatema moved first, making sure there were no traps or some beast waiting for prey around the corner. She didn't detect anything unusual. The ruins were empty, apart from some small insects crawling around in the stone and debris.
Most of the things were too old to be usable, wood was putrid, and metal had corroded. There was nothing to salvage here. Most of the expedition ended up being a waste of time. The only building that seemed to have withstood the passage of time was a giant temple in the center of the city.
As they got closer, they could see stone statues over twenty meters tall. They were still standing in one piece. They could only see the outside, as the inner temple was hidden behind giant walls. There was only one entrance, but it was closed with a stone door.
"You can't possibly move this with power alone." Andel said as he looked at the massive stone doors. "They must have used hundreds of people to move them. Unless you have some type of magic key, we can't do much else."
"Yeah, I went to check with Fatema. There are no windows or even holes for air. They completely seal it."
"There must be a reason. From all the structures in this place, this is the only one still standing." Thanatos walked toward the gate and tried to find something.
The walls were covered in depictions of people and animals; some of them have been eroded by time, but you could still get most of the images. The stone doors were covered in pictures too, but looking closer, he could see symbols hidden in the pictures.
Wait, these are glyphs. He began to trace the lines. Only someone like him, who can read glyphs, could decipher the words on the door. He was sure Zek did this. He began to read the words, but he couldn't make out the meaning of all of them.
"To open... my kingdom... hope... despair... present... my power... and... the trial..." He looked at the last symbol; it read "offer." He walked to a piece of stone that had the same symbol.
He stood on it and took out the black book.
TTTTTHHHOOOMMMMM… The massive doors began to open.