438 Desert Illusion (1/2)
At long last, Zero and his friends were able to leave the underground shelter after the sandstorm died. The sun was bright and glaring, the journey boring once more after they mounted their sand walkers.
For days, the party travelled across the vast land with nothing but golden sand and tall dunes for miles. Zero was getting bored and decided to spend his time playing word games with Bob who also told interesting stories. The atmosphere was very relaxed and Jermine found herself lowering her guard around these people. The scary archer was no longer that scary when she got to know him. He wasn't the friendliest person but he didn't care much about others unless they wished harm upon Zero.
Along the way, Jermine sensed a few caves that the party checked out but none of them proved as interesting as the dungeon that Jermine discovered while they were waiting for the sand storm to pass. Zero was starting to get rather disheartened about finding the desert poppy because these caves didn't have them.
Truen was throwing out his arrows into the air for scouting and mapping purposes when he saw a strange thing from the horizon. At first, the elf thought that his eyes were playing tricks on him. Desert Lily claimed that illusions were common in the desert for various reasons and most times, it was a death trap for travellers who didn't know better.
”Are you seeing what I'm seeing?” he asked Bob who squinted. Jermine was puzzled at what they were looking at.
”Is that... a stone pillar sticking out from the sand?”
Truen nodded. ”I guess it isn't an illusion if we're seeing the same things. Jermine, can you confirm if there is actually a solid structure in the north direction two sand dunes away from us?”
The mole girl shook her head. ”I'm sorry, it's too far for me to detect anything yet.”
With a new option presenting itself in front of the party, Truen stopped the sand walkers to hold a meeting.
”Zero, you're the party leader. You decide if we should explore the ruins and check out the illusion or continue in the direction we were going based on the map.”
If he had a heart, it would have exploded from excitement but Zero didn't so he merely suppressed all that feelings within and wore a practised poker face. Being a leader was a fantastic thing, he could decide what they should do. No wonder there were so many stories of people killing each other in order to become the leaders of their country or territory. He would have been incredibly sad if they missed the chance to take a break for the boring scouting and travelling. Besides, nothing sounded better than discovering the hidden secrets of the ancient ruins.
With such a sound plan that didn't feel like Zero made that decision rashly, Truen approved of it. Jermine and Bob were slightly unsure. The last time Zero found a dungeon, he headed in and kept them all outside, running ahead by himself. Nobody felt the betrayal greater than Bob and nobody was more suspicious of him than Jermine. This time, they were determined to keep their eyes locked on their leader so that Zero wouldn't think of abandoning them again.
The sand walkers walked closer to the direction of the two huge sand dunes and Truen told Jermine to let them know as soon as she sensed anything. Even if they were able to see the sand dunes, it still took them a few hours on sand walker backs to arrive at the first sand dune. Zero decided that they wouldn't be able to reach the ruins by nightfall so he told the group to settle down for the night.
”We don't know if there are monsters there, so it's better to camp out in the open. Jermine, could you start digging a shelter? Bob, you're in charge of collecting sticks for the fire. Truen and I will simply work on dismantling monsters, let's meet back at camp by dinner.”
Bob and Jermine didn't suspect a thing and Zero grabbed his archer friend a good distance away so that they were out of ear-shot.
”Truen, that is not an illusion.”
”How do you know?”