(Friday, 29th of Dawnstar Moon)
After some time, Molly, Hero, and Jack arrived at the border.
The border is where the two deserts met, and was underwhelming to be honest. The desert sun was covered up by a thick layer of black and grey clouds, almost as though it was going to rain soon. It was a massive desert canyon, sections into layers. There were three layers, with each one having a different length, but all went across the border as far as the eye could see. The layers were stacked on top of eachother, kind of making it look like a massive step of rocky stair steps mirroring each other in the desert rock. On either side of the canyon, were different kinds of tents. Scattered around the canyon were several pieces of mining equipment, like drill trucks. The largest pieces of equipment were massive cranes, but they didn't have the crane part, instead, they had a massive roller attached to them with spikes. Jack noticed that most of their backs were attached to the earth. Why were the backs attached to the cliffs? There was a massive stone bridge connecting the two sides, so they decided to stop at the bridge. There was no one outside, other than a few soldiers, who were giving them distrustful stares. Jack parked Ebony Horse right on the bridge. The three of them stood on the mech's back, and Molly handed Jack a megaphone.
"OKAY LISTEN UP EVERYONE, WE'RE GUARDIANS!" Jack spoke into the megaphone, and given how loud it was, everyone and their mother could hear them. "We're here to settle a dispute between the two countries, so DO NOT SHOOT US!"
"We won't shoot you, but we can't say the same for those snake fuckers over there!" One of the soldiers on the Atitihad side pointed their rifles towards the Deshret side.
"Well we won't shoot 'em, we'll wait for you guys to shoot them so you'll die at the hands of Herakles you religious freaks!" A female soldier from the Deshret side shouted on the opposite end of the canyon.
"Hey, could a guide or something help us out here?" Jack asked, and no one stepped up. "Guess not, Molly, do you know anything about this place?"
"Let me think..." Molly began pacing around on the bridge, clearly deep in thought. "Well, this place was a mine on the border of Atitihad and Deshret."
"How useful." Jack sarcastically sweatdropped then looked at Hero. "Hero, you got any idea-?"
"Ooohhh, shiny." Hero was on the layer below them now, looking at an ore vein that had some crystals popping up.
"Oh the things I put up with."
Jack decided to explore the area a bit to learn what the heck was going on here. Jack started off by looking around, trying to find a starting point for me to work with. His eyes landed on some of the mining equipment. I walked up to the mining equipment and examined it. It was massive, with the wheels alone being my height. Jack reached onto the platform and used the platform to pull himself up. His plan was to find traces of something that could lead him to the culprit. When he lifted himself high enough, Jack placed his leg on the platform to pull the rest of his body up. Jack rolled onto the platform and opened the door to the cabin that had the controls to the drill.
Then Jack began my search.
(Meanwhile, somewhere in Hajaar)
Zane and Galahad were assigned a mission to one of the many jungles in the Hajaar region. Their exact mission? Slay the giant tiger that has been killing a series of hikers. Of course, while Galahad is most suited for this mission, Zane is most not, so he was wondering why Herakles paired them up together. Still, Zane was incredibly grateful to him because of the scene he was staring at before him. He and Galahad set up a temporary camp next to a lake, and Galahad decided he was going to take a dip in this said lake. Galahad was currently shirtless, wearing only his boxers as he emerged from the water, glistening wet pulling his hair back. Galahad's glistening six pack and biceps clung to the droplets of water that remained on his body.
"God damnit I think I fell in love."
Zane was sitting on a nearby log, fully dressed in a blue tank top, pants, and hiking boots while a set of magenta glasses rested on his face. Unfortunately, he couldn't see them because his heavy breathing somehow fogged them up. On his lap, Zane had a laptop on his lap. This laptop had a black cable connected to a small helicopter drone.
"Say something Buddy?" Galahad turned his head to Zane, who almost dropped his laptop when the paladin turned his attention to him.
"No, sorry, just talking to myself, this code is really challenging!" Zane was turning a bright red color when Galahad's eyes focused solely on him.
"It's okay Zane, you're hella smart so I know you can do it!" Galahad cheered Zane on, and Zane instantly felt immeasurably guilty for some reason.
"Damn it, why am I lewding such a cinnamon roll in my mind." Zane cursed to himself.
While Zane was mentally beating himself up for being a pervert, Galahad laid on his back to simply drift amongst the top of the water. While the two men were doing their own thing, something crawled through the large bushes and lush wildlife not too far from them. Its striped orange fur was hunched over, while its glowing green eyes were focused solely on the blue haired boy. Its fangs glistened in the sunlight before letting out a low growl, which Zane didn't hear, but someone else did. The beast pounced forward, roaring and focusing everyone's attention onto it. Zane noticed the giant tiger too late, he couldn't move quick enough to get out of the way. The tiger's mouth opened wide to reveal a row of sharp teeth on the side of someone's hand. Zane's eyes went wide as dinner plates, there was no escape for him, this was the end.
"Shamsiel!"
The humid jungle air suddenly grew more and more humid, and a wall of flames forced the giant tiger back. The tiger landed on the ground and swiftly jumped back, rubbing its face into the ground to stop the burning. The tiger looked at Galahad, who was holding a double edged greatsword, the guard of which depicted a sun. Galahad's skin now has a slightly red tint to it, and flames were emitting off his muscular body.
"This is Shamsiel, a greatsword from my family of Paladins." Galahad stepped forward, and Zane could see the lake's water evaporate around him. "My family's blood has been blessed by the sun, and the higher the sun is in the sky, the stronger the blessing becomes. Shamsiel is the only weapon in the world that our family can use at full power."
The tiger's face fur was burned off, but the tiger still lunged at Galahad, who was now fully out of the now evaporating water. In response to this attack, Galahad raised his sword high into the air, costing it in a golden flame aura. The tiger lunged in front of the paladin, who swung his sword downwards in a flash of golden light. The tiger's body spilled a few droplets of blood before splitting in half before it could reach Galahad. The left and right halves of the giant tiger's body flew past him, and landed face first into what remained of the evaporated river. The tiger's giant corpse fell into the ditch that was once a lake, with it's cut facing the sky. The wound was cauterized, and still sizzling thanks to the immense heat that the cut gave off.
"Phew, that scared me." Galahad took a breath out and the temperature slowly but surely returned back to normal. Galahad then looked at Zane. "Zane, are you okay?"
"I'm okay." Zane answered while looking at Galahad in shock.
"Are you sure, you're looking kind of pale?" The still shirtless Galahad walked over to Zane and put his palm over the blue haired boy's forehead, causing Sane to blush because he was getting an up close and personal view of the man's abs. "Holy crap you're burning up, we need to get you back to Sanctuary as fast as possible!"
"No no no!" Zane pushed Galahad away, managing to touch Galahad's abs in the process. "It's just really hot here, so the heat is making my body hotter."
"Well, we finished the mission so I guess we can go home now." Galahad looked at the tiger's corpse. "Moving this is going to be a pain though, I wish we can hire some help."
"I'll see if I can hack a truck or something." Zane began typing away on his laptop. "Darn, it's busted, the heat must have somehow melted some of the important bits."
"Sorry Zane!"
(Back to Jack.)
Oh my gods why is there so much machinery?!
Jack walked back to Ebony Horse, where Molly was looking at some files and Hero was nowhere to be found.
"So Molly, what were you even doing this whole time?" Jack asked the blonde inventor.
"Oh I was just making a connection that allowed me to connect to the World Wide Webz, so I can look up what this place is for." Molly patted the spot next to her and Jack sat down. "Apparently it's made to harvest Famliam, a material used by magic classes to get their familiars. It also harvests some other alchemical minerals, but mainly familiam."
"Familiam...maybe I should try using it." Jack thought to himself out loud, and Molly simply looked at him. "I'm a magic class, so it should be compatible with me. So what does it look like?"
"It's a glowing green crystal, and it doesn't work like 'POOF' you get a familiar, it's more like it attracts your destined familiar to you." Molly informed Jack while reading it off the internet. "The longer you hold the crystal, the more powerful the effect is."
"Glowing green crystal..." Jack looked around the canyon, then he noticed an area with a green tint to it, indicating green light. "Found it, now I just need a pick axe..."
"Oh I have this buttplug I made that can double as a miniature drill." Molly pulled out a buttplug from her jumpsuit pocket and pulled the plug part of it off, revealing a small drill. "Just so you know, I haven't used it yet."
"WHY." Jack asked before Molly forced the drill buttplug into your hands. "I have so many questions, but all of them start with WHY."
"I'm horny and masochistic." Molly answered with a 100% serious expression on her face.
"That answered half of them." Jaxk took that as an answer before walking to a staircase that was on the bridge. "Set up camp with Hero, I'll be back in a bit."
Jack walked down the staircase, but then he got a genius idea. He sat down on one of the steps of the stairs and opened his prosthetic to reveal a messy jumble of wires and buttons. In the mess of wires, Jack saw a switch that was labeled 'super mode'. Jack flipped the switch and the leg began glowing an even brighter green color. You closed the hatch to his prosthetic foot and stood up, noticing how his foot felt odd for some reason. Jack decided to place his real foot on top of the prosthetic before jumping on one leg.
"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"
Jack instantly regretted jumping on one leg because now he was soaring into the air. Jack soared through the air like a rocket, piercing the gray clouds above with ease. Jack's eyes were closed until he felt as though he was slowing down. Jack opened his eyes to see nothing but a sea of clouds, and in the distance, the sun was setting. The sun's light painted the gray clouds a radiant yellow color, the purple and orange sky complimented the golden clouds perfectly. Behind Jack, the day slowly turned to dusk.
Then he began falling once again.
"-UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"
Gravity began pulling Jack down without any signs of stopping, and he fell through the gray clouds. Jack emerged from the cold clouds, allowing him to get a birds eye view of the mining canyon and the army tents on either side of the canyon. He had the stupid idea of keeping his remaining foot on top of the prosthetic leg, hoping his prosthetic would absorb the impact and allow him to get out of this alive. Of course, that is unless the prosthetic stabs Jack due to the force. It's a gamble he'll have to take.
"-UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"
Jack landed on the ground with a powerful thud, and the landing kicked up a lot of dust, enough dust to blind him. Jack was perfectly still until the dust cleared, revealing that he was still in one piece?! Jack checked his body to see if he got injured somehow, and amazingly, he was still in one piece.
"YES!" You pumped both of your hands into the air and let out a cheer, you were alive! "Now where's that Familiam..."
Jack's eyes landed on a vein of glowing green rocks, so he pulled out the drill from his pocket to begin drilling on the vein. The small drill didn't really do much to break the rocks, so he just drilled around the vein until a piece of Familiam came loose enough for Jack to pull out a piece of Familiam that was no bigger than his thumb. Jack grabbed the piece of rock and examined it, guess he'll have to hold onto it for a little while.
"Hey, what the hell are you doing?!" An Atitihad soldier was looking down at Jack from the cliff on the Atitihad side.
"I'm just grabbing some Familiam for myself since I don't have a familiar yet." Jack informed the soldier.
"You can't do that!" The soldier shouted at Jack. "You're supposed to be proving that those snake fuckers violated the treaty so we can invade them and spread peace!"
"You can't invade someone and expect there to be peace dumb fuck, I'm an amnesiac and even I know that." Jack sweatdropped. "And another thing, I'm here to find out WHO turned on the machinery to mine this stuff. However, I can't find out what machine was turned on in the first place because SOME PEOPLE refused to help my group. So now I'm stuck investigating every machine here!"
"Damn snake fucking heretic." The Atitihad soldier spat on Jack. "When you come face to face with our great ruler, you'll have to tell him you stood in the way of our glorious conquest."
"I'm not even from Deshret, you cunt." Jack sighed as he put the rock in his pocket. "Also, if you plan on conquering shit, you're basically making yourselves out to be the bad guy."
"I'm not the bad guy, I'm doing my duty!" The soldier ranted, and in response, Jack rolled your eyes.
"You know, the 12 Kingdoms are at Peace right now, yet if you're going around wanting to conquer them, then I don't care about your justification, you're the villain here." Jack then prepared to jump again back to the camp. "You're thinking too much about what your ruler wants, yet you're not thinking enough about what your fellow man wants."
Then Jack jumped back into the air, soaring through the air towards Molly and the camp. Jack soared through the air once more before landing on his prosthetic foot on the bridge. It appears that all the force is absorbed by his prosthetic foot. Molly has already set up three tents, one for each of them and even had a small fire going. Jack walked towards Molly and Hero, with the two of them roasting an impossibly large boar over the small fire.
"How the hell...where did this pig come from?" Jack asked as he joined the two people beside the campfire.
"Hero disappeared for a bit and got it for us." Molly informed Jack while she used a blowtorch to help cook the massive pig. "Hey, didn't Hero kick your ass in the entrance exams, how did you get into the school?"
"They felt bad for me because the skill gap was so large, so they let me in by allowing me to take a written examination." Jack lied as naturally as he breathed. "So any chance we can turn this bad boy into bacon?"
"Nah, just ham slices will have to do for now." Molly continued spinning and cooking the pig until it was completely done cooking. "And BAM! Multiple extra large HAM-burgers coming right up."
And they made absolutely ZERO progress on the investigation.