We are currently on our fourth day of this expedition. No losses of life have happened but everyone is at breaking point. Gilacorn once stole some of our food. We were chased by a sand shark. We lost our camelephants. One private was poisoned by local food. Another private was sick because he dressed in too little clothes during the night. I was almost bitten by a snakebat. There has been a fight about someone stealing food and water.

We even saw one knowledge seeker, but we had to give up as midday was coming. Giving up did not make anyone happy.

They even broke my surfboard to make me stay with them. Are you serious? How am I now going to scout ahead or distract another sand shark?

We have managed to get water by cooling my sail with underground sand. This allows us to gather condensing water. It is not much but we gain something at least.

For these reasons, we choose to form a camp in the middle of the desert. We are planning to look in every direction from here. Once we are sure it is not in this area then we continue even further north-east. At least we are going in the right direction. Zhao has concluded that the library is in this direction. His reasoning is heavy traveling between Misty Palms Oasis and Si Wong Rock. The library can not be between them or close by since it would have been found a long time ago. Desert border is out for the same reason. These findings concluded that the library´s location is northeast of Misty Palms Oasis.

I think we are at least explored the ¾ path there or we have gone through it. I hope we have not to go through it.

Seven days later.

We had to come back to Misty Palms Oasis to heal two of our men. We choose to leave them behind to rest. We had to buy a sand-sailer. It was not easy but managed to scavenger enough local beast during our trip. I think they have accepted us to be part of their group. It did not make any of us happy.

Two days later.

We managed to build our second camp.

I hope we are close by. Staying here is no pleasant experience. The only thing I find good in this situation is that I got a new friend. His name is Oki. He is a young private how came from a military family. He is the fourth son so he needs to make his family proud to survive. For that reason, he came under lieutenant Zhao. He was chosen by his intellect. He is a firebender but he does not like to hurt other people. I have only seen him warm himself up. He has not used fire even to cook. Not like something like that is needed. All food is made to last a long time. We have gotten tired of its taste.

Oki is a 14-years old boy. He volunteered for this mission. He also wanted to see the library. He has chared about how firebending works in return I have taught all other forms of bending. He even helped me to understand that sand bending is closer to waterbending than airbending. I was surprised by it. I was looking at the problem from a different side.

Sandbending is not about free movement. It is closer to circular motion. The point is not to control every single sand grain individually like Toph. I am not capable of doing the same as she does. I found it was much easier to bend only a few of those grains and force the rest of the sand to follow them as a singular object. This made bending sand even easier than earthbending rock long time. Naturally to get sand bending starting takes effort but when it is active then it became easy to bend longer times without breaks. Circular movement allows sand benders to use less strength and movement to bend. Circular movement gives extra strength to do so.

I always thought that I did not understand how water bending worked. I found that I liked waterbending the most except earthbending of course.

I could only use the surfboard as a tool to move on the sand by shaping the bottom of the board to fit the sand surface. I was close to figuring it out but I was trapped by what I had seen Toph and Aang doing in the series.

I saw sandbenders moving and I saw I was correct. They were not using airbending techniques. Their feet were always on the ground and not free in the air. I must have looked ridiculous.

(You finally noticed that you looked ridiculous with those dance movements. Did you try to overhead jump kicks without any target? We thought you lost your mind.) Oki

It is way too easy for him to cause me to become embarrassed. He has figured me out completely. He was not always been social person, but thanks to this experience he came around. He had gotten used to making human contact with other people only when necessary. He was almost always surrounded by his family house´s walls.

(Says a person how says he is going to go picking flowers when he is going to the toilet.) Shamo

(Please forget about it. That joke has gone an old long time ago.) Oki

(It is not up to you when it does go old even if it ever will.) Shamo

(Quiet and stop your bickering! You just volunteered to scout trip. You are more than ready to do so if you like to talk so much. Now go and leave us!) Zhao said that harshly but we have come to know that he is playful too. It does not mean we are not going scouting though.

(Let´s go south. It is close by where we have already looked but let´s do this systematically. We are doomed if we miss a spot.) Shamo

Unknown to me we were at beetle-headed merchants camp which was the show in the series. We were going directly to Wan Shi Tong´s library´s location. Things were not going to be easy though. We were going directly to the sand shark colony. Nobody said they were colonizing species. Well, they were not. One angry mother might have caused us to think so.

To put a long story short. We were chased by sand shark children and by their mother. Children were just playing with us but mother was not giving us any changes to survive.

(I blame you. You were whistling that strange song again.) Oki

Who cares whose fault it is? It does not change what we have to do.

(You go right then I go left! No hard feeling who gets to be chosen as pray!) Shamo

(No way! I always pick the shortest stick! Think something else!) Oki

(You are not helping at all!) Shamo

So far we have managed to dodge all of her attacks. Sure they are simple and easy to read. Mother sand shark is just too fast and large. Younger ones are surrounding us and attacking when given a chance. They had already managed to hit few times.

Kids are proven more dangerous because they are not worried about defense. They are attacking only when their mother can protect them.

Meanwhile, the mother has not experienced any harsh damages. She is highly resistant to fire, rocks, and sand. It is no surprise as a top predator in here. It is even bigger than what was shown in the show. It is slower though.

There is one thing that is strange about it. It does not allow us to look at what is behind it.

(She is hiding something behind its back. It might be our only chance to escape. Make a distraction for me.) Shamo

(I do not have any choice.)

Oki made a large fire breath from his mouth. Sand sharks spent most of their time under the sand. This makes their eyes highly sensitive to light. They only allow themselves to open their eyes a moment before striking which is opposite to sharks from my world. This very nature has allowed us to survive so long. I had asked Oki not to use fire these moments to give us decisive change to strike later.

I got behind her and saw a metal chain bound to her. I stuck with my dagger to it. Not to destroy it but to make it resonate. I am not capable of using seismic sense but when resonation happens between two very different things then I have a slight chance to succeed. Sand and iron are highly different.

What I saw was the library. This sand shark is bound to the library as a guard. That means we need to get in that direction to get away from the library.

(We will run in that direction!)

I pointed in opposite direction from the library. Sand shark soon gave up from chasing. They were probably thinking we did not know they were trapped in the library. This explains why she was so slow.

We went to the camp to give out good and bad news. We got a mixed reaction.