Morning light spilled through the guest room window. Ravon was tightening the buckles on his leather armor when Lyra turned to him, her expression perfectly serious.
"Go to the village market," she ordered. "Buy the cheapest bale of hay you can find. When you return, come through the front door, carry the hay inside, and do not close the door behind you."
Ravon paused, a buckle half-fastened. "Why do we need a bale of hay? And when exactly are we leaving?"
"Just do what I say," she said, waving him off.
Confused but unwilling to argue, Ravon stepped out into the sandy streets. He found a farmer selling feed near the edge of the market and traded three of his copper coins for a small, scratchy bale of dried desert grass.
He hoisted it onto his shoulder and walked back to the Chief's house. Following her bizarre instructions perfectly, he pushed the heavy front door open, stepped inside, and left it wide open to the morning air.
He dropped the hay bale onto the guest room floorboards. "Okay. The door is open. Can you tell me what you are doing with this hay?"
"Nothing," Lyra said simply. She reached into her pouch and pulled out the smoky glass orb.
"Nothing?" Ravon repeated, staring at the hay. "Then why did you make me buy it?"
"I will explain the purpose of this hay later," Lyra sighed. "Right now, I need to explain how this artifact works. We are short on time." She held up the swirling glass. "This is an Orb of Invisibility. It is our key to escaping Duneveil without being tracked."
"Can it teleport us straight to the mountain?"
"Listen to me before you speak," she corrected sharply. "If we pour mana into this core, it creates a field that bends light. It will make us completely invisible to the naked eye."
Ravon's red eyes lit up. "That's incredible! We can just walk right out."
"There is a catch," Lyra warned, her tone turning grave. "If the core absorbs too much mana at once, the glass will shatter. If it breaks while we are channeling, we will be violently erased from physical reality for several hours. Therefore, I will control the mana flow. You will simply hold onto the glass so the field covers you."
"Why can't I pour the mana?" Ravon offered. "I have plenty."
"Because I do not trust your mana control," she answered bluntly.
"I thought we were friends now."
"Do not say another word. Grab the orb."
Ravon sighed and placed his calloused hand over the smooth glass, letting Lyra's gloved fingers overlap his.
She closed her eyes, her brow furrowing in deep concentration. A faint hum vibrated through the glass. Slowly, the dark smoke inside the orb began to swirl and expand, bleeding out of the glass to wrap around their hands and arms.
"I think we are invisible now," Lyra whispered.
"But I can still see you," Ravon pointed out.
"Idiot, we are both inside the field," she hissed. "That is why we can see each other. Now move, before I run out of mana."
Still holding the orb together, they stepped carefully out of the guest room. They slipped past the open front door and out onto the sandy street.
The moment they stepped off the porch, Ravon froze.
Walking directly toward the house were Leo and Lia.
"I think they can see us," Ravon whispered, his heart skipping a beat.
"Shut up," Lyra hissed, elbowing him in the ribs. "The field muffles sound, it doesn't silence it completely. They can still hear us if you talk."
The two children walked right past the invisible duo, completely unaware of their presence. They stopped at the open doorway of the Chief's house.
"Evan! Come out!" Leo called into the hall.
A moment later, Evan appeared in the doorway, chewing on a piece of bread. "Let me finish eating, then I'll come play."
"We didn't come to play," Leo smiled proudly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, beautifully carved bone hunting knife. "My father said your friend would like this. It's a gift for big brother Ravon."
Lia stepped forward, holding out a dark wooden hairpin adorned with three polished green stones. "And I brought this for sister Lyra."
Standing just a few feet away, entirely invisible, Ravon felt a sharp pang of guilt. They bought us gifts.
Lyra didn't hesitate. She tugged hard on the orb, pulling Ravon toward the North Gate.
As they hurried through the sandy streets, Ravon whispered, "We are so unlucky. If we had just waited five minutes, we could have said goodbye."
"I did not calculate that they would bring us gifts," Lyra muttered, keeping her eyes fixed on the gate.
"I would have gladly accepted that knife."
"Too bad."
"Maybe we can visit them on the journey back to Arkenfall."
"We are not returning to this village," Lyra said firmly. "The stalker who tried to kill you might wait for us to return. We are finding a different route home."
Before Ravon could argue, a village woman carrying a basket of clothes abruptly stopped walking. She turned her head, looking directly at the empty space where Ravon and Lyra stood.
Both of them froze completely still, holding their breath.
The woman frowned, staring at the empty street. After a long, tense moment, she shook her head and continued walking.
"That was too close," Lyra whispered. "She heard our footsteps. We need to stay completely clear of civilians."
Navigating wide arcs around the few villagers, they finally reached the wooden palisade of the North Gate. They slipped past the empty guard post, staring out at the endless, rolling dunes.
Lyra stopped.
"Why did you stop?" Ravon asked.
"Because if we run out there, we will leave deep footprints in the sand," Lyra explained, tapping her staff against a wooden post. "The stalker can simply follow our tracks."
Ravon looked at the sprawling desert, an idea forming. "What if you cast those magical barriers you use for shields, but lay them flat on the ground? We could run on top of them without touching the sand."
Lyra paused, looking at him with genuine surprise. "That... is actually not a terrible idea."
"I have my moments."
Lyra raised her staff. Two square, translucent blue platforms materialized in the air, hovering exactly one foot above the sand.
Ravon stepped onto the first platform. It groaned under his weight, the magical glass spiderwebbing slightly. "These feel incredibly thin."
"Because I am only making them thick enough to hold our weight for two seconds," Lyra explained, stepping onto the platform beside him. "I have to conserve mana. Do not stop moving. If you stop, the barrier will shatter, and you will fall into the sand."
"I feel useless right now," Ravon admitted.
"Just run."
They broke into a dead sprint. As Ravon's boot left the first barrier, Lyra instantly dissolved it, casting a fresh platform perfectly in stride ahead of him. It was a grueling, high-speed magical tightrope walk. Step, dissolve, cast. Step, dissolve, cast. They soared over the golden dunes, leaving absolutely no trace of their passage on the earth below.
After a brutal, unbroken hour of sprinting, Lyra cast a massively thick, dark blue platform. "Stop!" she gasped.
Ravon skidded to a halt on the solid magic. He wasn't even breathing hard. "What's wrong?"
Lyra collapsed onto the barrier, rubbing her aching legs. "I need to rest."
"I'm full of stamina," Ravon offered brightly. "I can just carry you while you cast the platforms."
Lyra glared up at him. "I do not need you to carry me, pervert."
"Hey!" Ravon defended, throwing his hands up. "I'm not a pervert! I am literally just trying to help!"
Lyra ignored him, stretching her sore calves over the magical glass. "This feels amazing."
Ravon sighed, sitting down cross-legged on the platform and stretching his own legs. "I agree. Now, can you finally explain why you made me buy that stupid hay bale?"
"To make the open door look natural," Lyra said, rubbing her ankle.
Ravon blinked. "What do you mean?"
"If a wooden door magically opens by itself while we are invisible, anyone watching the house will instantly know we are escaping," Lyra explained. "But, if you walk through the door carrying a large, messy bale of hay, it is perfectly natural to leave the door open so you don't drop the grass. We walked out through an already open door. The stalker likely thinks we are still inside the guest room right now."
Ravon stared at her, deeply impressed by the sheer paranoia of the tactical maneuver. "Oh. That is brilliant."
They rested for a few more minutes before resuming the sprint.
The deeper they traveled north, the more the landscape changed. The golden sand was slowly being consumed by towering, frozen dunes and massive, jagged pillars of ice. The ambient heat of the desert vanished, replaced by a bitter, biting chill.
"I can see Mount Cryostone," Ravon said, pointing to the jagged, imposing, white-capped peaks looming on the distant horizon.
"We should reach the base in five days," Lyra calculated.
By late afternoon, Lyra's pace slowed. "I am hitting my mana limit," she warned.
Before Ravon could step onto the next platform, the magic completely vanished. The smoky field of the orb dissolved along with the barrier, leaving them entirely visible to the naked eye once again. They both plunged forward, crashing face-first into the cold sand.
Ravon rolled onto his back, wiping grit from his mouth. "How long were we running?"
"Over four hours," Lyra panted, her chest heaving. She pushed herself up to her knees. "Can you cast any kind of sensory magic to scan the area?"
"No."
Ravon pulled his leather canteen from his pouch, taking a long, refreshing drink of cold water. He capped it and tossed the bottle to Lyra.
She caught it, uncorked the top, and tipped it back. Nothing came out.
She lowered the bottle, giving Ravon a lethal, dead-eyed stare. Without a word, she hurled the heavy leather canteen straight at his head.
Ravon caught it, laughing out loud. "Revenge complete!"
Lyra rolled her eyes, pulling her own full canteen from her dimensional pouch and taking a sip. "We don't have time to rest. Keep walking."
Ravon stood up, dusting the sand off his pants. "Didn't you just hit zero mana? How can you even walk?"
"I am used to it," Lyra said, leaning on her staff. "When you drain your core to absolute zero enough times, the physical exhaustion stops hurting. You just become an empty, walking shell."
"Oh," Ravon nodded, stretching his arms. "I guess that's why I don't feel tired either."
They continued on foot, their heavy fur coats now necessary against the dropping temperature. The golden desert had entirely transformed into a frozen wasteland.
"At least the ice kills the sandstorms," Ravon noted.
"Only the weather is normal here," Lyra said, her eyes scanning the bizarre terrain. "Everything else is an anomaly."
She pointed her staff ahead. Protruding from a massive block of solid, pristine ice was the top half of a towering, ten-foot Sandworm. It was perfectly preserved, frozen mid-strike.
They cautiously approached the icy tomb. Lyra tapped the ice lightly with her staff. "This ice was generated by supreme-tier magic. That is why it hasn't melted in two hundred years."
Ravon drew his sword. He swung hard, striking the ice block with enchanted steel. The blade bounced off violently, sending a shock ringing up his arm. Not a single scratch appeared on the surface. "It's like hitting solid iron."
As they walked deeper into the graveyard, more frozen monsters appeared. Dozens of massive Sandworms were entombed in the ice. Ravon noticed that several of the largest worms had strange, glowing ancient runes etched into their frozen flesh.
"I think those marked ones were A-rank variants," Lyra observed.
As twilight began to fall, the temperature plummeted dramatically.
"I don't see any caves or ruins to camp in," Lyra said, her breath pluming in the freezing air.
"We'll just have to sleep in the open," Ravon decided, stopping near a relatively flat patch of frozen sand.
Lyra reached into her pouch, pulling out four small, smoothly polished stones etched with blue runes. She tossed them into a wide square around their camp. A faint, humming barrier of ambient warmth instantly flared to life, blocking the freezing wind.
"Your mana recovered enough to cast a ward?" Ravon asked, pulling his coat tighter.
"No. Runestones have their own internal mana reserves," she explained, sitting down in the warm square. "They require almost zero energy to activate."
"That is incredibly handy. I need to buy some of those."
"You are completely broke," Lyra reminded him cruelly. "A person like you cannot afford a single runestone. The lowest tier costs five gold coins, and the supreme tiers cost thousands."
"Again with the annoying money problem," Ravon clicked his tongue in annoyance.
"You can buy a few low-tier stones with your share of the Cryostone reward."
"No thanks," Ravon declined. "I don't want to waste my coin on low-quality gear."
Lyra shrugged, pulling a paar fruit from her pouch and tossing a heavy strip of dried meat to Ravon.
He caught the meat, staring at the tough, salty rations. "I really miss Mira's cooking." He tore off a bite, chewed slowly, and curled up on the hard, frozen earth to sleep.
A week later, the frozen desert finally gave way to the sheer, jagged foothills of Mount Cryostone.
The air was bitterly cold. Ravon and Lyra trudged up a steep incline, their fur coats dusted with fresh, powdery snow.
Ravon looked up at the towering, white-capped peaks piercing the clouds. "We are getting close."
"Obviously," Lyra panted, her breath visible in the freezing air. "We have been walking uphill for two days."
"Yeah, my bad." Ravon looked to his right, his eyes catching on a massive, irregular structure dominating the nearest valley. It was covered in centuries of snow and thick ice. "That mountain looks really strange."
Lyra followed his gaze. She squinted, analyzing the unnatural curves of the structure. "Let's check it out."
As they descended into the valley and approached the massive shape, a heavy, oppressive aura of ancient mana began to press down on their shoulders.
"Be careful," Lyra warned, tightening her grip on her staff. "There is immense residual power here."
Standing at the base of the structure, Ravon looked up. The sheer scale was incomprehensible. "I don't think this is a mountain."
"It's a monster," Lyra breathed, her blue eyes wide with awe. "A frozen monster."
"It has to be over a hundred feet tall."
They carefully walked around to the front of the frozen sandworm. Encased within a glacier of unbreakable ice was an enormous, terrifying maw. The mouth was large enough to swallow a merchant galleon whole, lined with countless rows of long, razor-sharp teeth arranged in concentric, terrifying circles.
"Let's look at the other side," Ravon suggested, his voice hushed by the sheer scale of the beast.
They navigated around the massive, frozen bulk. The back half of the monster was completely mangled. Massive, jagged bite marks the size of houses had torn through the creature's thick armor. Dark, frozen blood filled the craters, preserved perfectly within the magical ice.
"Look at that blood," Ravon said, shivering. "It still looks fresh."
Lyra wasn't looking at the blood. She was staring intently at the undamaged sections of the monster's segmented, sand-colored hide. "Ravon... don't those markings look familiar?"
"What markings?"
Lyra pointed her staff upward.
Ravon followed her finger. Carved deeply into the creature's flesh were seven massive, glowing ancient runes.
The memory of the painted mural in the Chief's house flashed instantly behind Ravon's eyes. The golden desert. The stick-figure humans kneeling in prayer. The giant worm reared back to strike the silver dragon.
His red eyes widened in absolute shock. "Is this... Azhurak? The Serpent of the Dunes?"