They were back in the locker room after finishing their shopping, each of them was now wearing a ring or two, or a ring and an amulet. All of them of similar design except for the stones that he saw, some were yellow, blue, green, black and all sorts of colors. Michelle was now sporting her [Chestpiece of the Cunning Tiger (F)] and [Leg Guard of the Cunning Tiger (F)], it was no longer a two-piece bikini. The two pieces a little more form fitting and a style that was close to the stuff he and Erin were wearing but it looked great on her.

The mic for the overhead PA system came on, then 1337 cleared his throat, which made no sense he had no throat, “Ahem, you have now cleared two of the floors it is time to enter into the third and final floor. It will be progressively harder, are you hotshots ready for some fun in the sun?” He waited but no one said anything. “Good, without further ado we will now send you to the third and final floor. Don’t get too much of a tan out there!”

Initializing Floor 3…. Initialization Complete

“Floor 3 – Beach Resort?” is now ready to be entered.

Please proceed with caution.

The door they were expecting started to materialize, Pepe saw an outline first then a semi-transparent wooden door came to be, after a few more seconds it was solid. It was a weather-beaten door, like if it had been out in the sun a long time, no handle could be seen on it. Guess it would just need to be pushed open out into the wherever it was. The name gave Pepe hope it would be a nice sandy beach where they were going.

Josh went forward and pushed the door open, they got hit with a strong heatwave as soon as he opened it fully, there was endless expanse of sand beyond the door. So not the Beach Resort or if there was one it would be far from where they were. Only thing that came to Pepe’s mind was ‘hate you nodes’ ah well it was time to see what this was about. So, they went through one at a time just as the last two floors.

As soon as he walked through the heat was even worse than before, the sun was at its peak and bright, it reflected off the sand and made the everything even worse. He felt the sun on his exposed skin, he knew he was about to get more than a tan. The temperature was worse than summer in the small town in Texas he and Manuel came from, there it was triple digits every summer but only for a few weeks, but this, it was much hotter. Again, not a Beach Resort at all, at least he got the sand and the sun, right? “This is not what I meant!” Damn he really wanted the water as well, where were the beautiful waves and the gorgeous bikini clad girls?

“Oy, what are you on about primo?”

“Nothing, just forget about that little outburst right now.” How was he going to explain it to them? His cousin would just make fun of him.

Once again after the last of the party came through, the door shut by itself and in no more than a second it had disappeared. He looked behind him where the door used to be, he knew it was gone but he just needed to see what was around. To his surprise about a hundred yards from where they stood sat a multicolored tent, around said tent were palm trees and some bushes. What it was doing there was beyond them, well he knew where they were going.

“Guys looks like we need to go this way.” His friends were still facing the opposite direction. They turned to look at what he saw. He saw the same face of confusion he probably had when he saw the tent. They all shrugged almost in unison as if they had practiced it. Yeah, he felt the same way, it was all strange so not entirely surprising, so far, the floors had all been different. How had the nodes done all this?

They started walking to the tent, no point in staying out in the middle of the sun, there was shade and getting to the shade was first and foremost on their minds. The entrance to the tent was on the opposite side of where they were, they their way to the entrance, Pepe felt sweat trying to escape only to be dried instantly in the heat. So far, he did not like any of the floors of this dungeon, one was a dank cave with lots of annoying mushrooms, the other undead and rain, and now this sun and heat. He was not looking forward to what they were going to fight.

Pepe noticed a small pond ten yards in front of the tent, now it made sense why there were bushes and palm trees. The front of the tent had a wide opening with a shade being held by two wooden poles, inside there was a small stand and a person sitting behind it, the person looked up as they walked in. He was wearing off white robes and a head scarf of the same color as the robes. The face that of an older man, the skin wrinkled and dark from spending a lifetime in the desert. Pepe looked at the eyes of the man, a color only seen on a person if they wore contact lenses as far as he knew, violet eyes.

“Customers? Yes, you would not be out here otherwise.” The voice sounded scratchy and rusty as if he did not speak much, Pepe was not sure he had a lot of customers out here in the middle of nowhere, but what did he know. “Are you here for a tour, riding lizards, adventure? How may Elam be of service?” He did a complicated movement with both his hands raising them, putting them to his head and then doing something equally complicated with his fingers then brining them back down. A greeting maybe, it would take Pepe a while to learn and then he would still mess it up.

Tours? In this place, he did not want a tour of the desert, what was there to see? Unless there was a bigger pond somewhere with a nice five star, at this point he would take even a two-star hotel otherwise he was good. And why did the old man not find it peculiar that he and his friends were here in the middle of a desert? Did this weird stuff happen often around here that he did not even bat an eye on it, it was somewhat concerning if that was the case.

Josh walked up to the stand and started to ask questions, “Sir, we are here for adventure, may I ask where we are at?”

“Young man you are at Elam’s Adventure and Tours in the Sondjaskan desert. You have come to the right place. Glad am I that you showed up, there has been a report of strange occurrences in the Benaja Ruins.” And of course, there were ‘strange occurrences’ they were in a dungeon after all. “But it is a three day walk from here to the East, walking would be dangerous as you do not know the desert. But I have a solution for you, my ridding lizards they will get you there in a day.” And there it was, Pepe saw that one coming too, it was just too obvious, “And I can provide a guide as well, though you must tip him when he gets you there.”

At this Bobby came forward to settle on what the price would be, Josh came back to the group to talk about what they would be doing, “Thoughts anyone?”

Pepe’s cousin shook his head, Erin and Michelle did likewise, Pepe was not sure about all this, “Kind of a setup again aint it?”

“Looks like it but it is what it is, we have to get to these Banaja Ruins, and this is the way to go.” Yeah, it was like they were being led just like with Sir Urthor.

Bobby and Elam were done with the deal, whatever it cost them it seemed the merchant was happy, oh well hopefully they made more out of it when the dungeon run was complete. Elam got up and they saw that he was tall as in towering over them, Manuel and Josh being the tallest in the group had to look up at the tall skinny Elam, he smiled at them, his teeth were white very white in the dark wrinkled skin. He went outside took out a small item that he brought up to his mouth and blew into it. There was a shrill and then he did it a few more times than he put it away, “Your guide will be here with the ridding lizards shortly, would you like some refreshments while you wait?”

They nodded, something to drink would be welcome, he brought out a jug and cups and started to pore the drink. The liquid was a reddish color, they went to the stand and picked up the cups they were offered. Pepe sipped it a little to see what it was, it was like a sweet iced tea, it was cool so whatever he had it in maintained it cool. The rest did the same, once they were done Elam offered more of the drink, Pepe was more than happy to have a bit more.

It took another fifteen minutes for their guide to arrive, they felt the floor shake a little and then the sound of some animal making loud clicking noises. It seemed their ride had arrived, “If you please, I will show you our pride and joy.” He got up and walked out, the group quick to see what was outside waiting for them.

Outside sat four lizards, very large lizards, a smaller version of Elam sat on the front lizard, he did a click sound and all the lizards went down on their belies. The lead lizard was the largest of the four, the boy then slid down the side and ran to Elam. He gave the tall man a hug, “Grandfather, as you requested.” He wore similar garb to that of his grandfather.

“Thank you Lassirra, please bow to our guest.” The boy even though he was about as tall as Manuel looked at the group of six and bowed to them. He would likely be taller like his grandfather; he had the awkward look of a young boy that had just grown into the height he was. He was even skinnier than Elam, his face the same color as his grandfather smooth with no wrinkles, the eyes also violet, his voice was that of one very young.

“On to our lovely riding lizards, this is Maji she is the Alpha of the group as well as the mother, behind her are Roti, Escu, and Artuti. They will take you to your destination, they are our fastest lizards, and they love to run.”

The lizards were intimidating, Pepe was not sure about riding those big monsters. The front face almost triangular, the eyes bulging out some and the top of the head had hard ridges as well as horns. The mother, Maji was the most intimidating of them all, she was wider than a car and the length of three car put together. He looked up at the huge lizard, standing he was about mouth level as she laid there, she turned and looked at the diminutive human, opened her mouth to show sharp teeth. It was almost as if she was smiling at him, or at least he hoped that was the case.

They all had similar coloring, some browns, and whites throughout the scales, they had what seemed like saddles for the passengers strapped to them, going down and around their chest and belies what one would assume were leather straps of some sort. The mother had no seat at all, a thin rope was tied to rings on either side of her face.

“Lassira please get them ready while we outfit our customers.” He then turned to the group, “if you would follow, please.” He then led them back into the tent where he took them to a side room, and grabbed some items, he handed each one of them the items.

Pepe looked down at what he could only describe as pants and something for his face and head, they were both an off white like what the old man was wearing. He examined and brought up a description, [Pants of the Desert Rider], [Headgear of the Desert Rider], pants and head gear meant to be worn when riding various desert mounts to protect the ridder. Oh, good they probably would have been bloody at the end of the ride from rubbing against the lizard’s hard scales.

After they had changed, they had been led back to the awaiting lizards, Josh and Bobby were setup on one of them, the one called Escu. Manuel and Erin where then helped up on the larger one Artuti and that only left Roti for Pepe and Michelle.

Michelle looked up at the lizard then back over to Pepe, “Sorry but I am driving, you got back.” Before he could even say anything, she was climbing to the front seat, he shrugged and got behind her. It was not easy to get up on top of the large lizard, but he managed it with a little help from Lassira.

Once they were all settled on their lizards, their feet were in their pedals, or whatever they were called when riding horses, Pepe was not sure as he had not done any horseback riding. Maybe he would look that up when he was back in the real world, there was always some kind of wiki to look stuff up. Lassira did one last look around to make sure everyone was fine walked to his mount and jumped up, he grabbed onto the thin rope but that was it, he started to do some form of series of click sounds and all four of the lizards got up.

Pepe looked down, they were not high up, but they were higher, he would have had quite a hard time getting up to the saddle if the lizards had not been on their bellies earlier. Another set of clicks came from Lassira and they started moving, at first at a slow walk, followed by a canter, then a full on run. They had all waved goodbye to the Elam on their way out, the old man waved and went back into his tent waiting for the next set of strange adventurers.

Neither Lassira nor his grandfather Elam felt like generic NPCs to Pepe, they felt like real people, some of what they said could easily be attributed to an NPC, but it felt setup. Likely the nodes had not handed them a script or anything but fed them information that they would need to pass on. Well, it did not mater, what mattered was that they were off to these strange Banaja Ruins. The gait of the lizards was this back-and-forth movement, unlike what he had seen of horses in movies and shows. They were fast, he could feel the air on his face as they moved, he had seen Lassira adjust his head gear to cover most of his face only a slit for his eyes to see where they were going.

The start with the walk and canter was easy and he held on to the small knob that was in front of the saddle right behind Melissa. As they started to move faster Melissa was doing whoops of excitement and was laughing as they moved faster. She even threw in a “if you get scared you can hold on to me alright!” Oh, he wanted to hold on alright, and at one point when they really started to run fast, he did, it was good that she could not see his face because it was quite red. While he was having fun, it was a little scarry, it was not like riding a roller-coaster or an amusement park ride, there were no belts or safety harnesses at all. How did people ride animals with no belts or anything to keep them on them? He had newfound respect for jockeys and people that normally rode horses because it was crazy, he was thought to always wear his seat belt in the car.

Lassira was good, and the lizards knew they had passengers so they did their best to keep them onboard, these truly were great ridding lizard, not that Pepe had other comparison that he could name. The fact that he was still on was not due to his skill at all because he felt like a sack of potatoes bouncing all over the place. They were on hour three of the ride when they stopped, it was a good thing because Pepe was afraid that his holding on to Michelle had been a bit too much, he let go and again was happy about the face covering. It was good that he could hide the embarrassment and that it had protected him from the sand that was being kicked up by the lizards and the wind itself. He still had to clean out a lot of sand from what was exposed but it could have been worse.

The clicks came from Lassira and the lizards went down on their belies, how they could stand the heat of the sand he was not sure. It was still stifling hot, he looked around now that he could make stuff out, but it was endless rolling sand that he saw. How they knew where they were going was beyond him, they would have never made it out to where they were going without help. Lassira turned to look at them but did not get off the lizard, “We will rest for a little bit then continue, this is a good time to eat and drink. There is both in your saddle bags please help yourself.”

Pepe was ready for some water, maybe not so much food, but water for sure, he was very thirsty with all this heat. He looked inside one of the saddle bags and brought out a water skin and passed it to Michelle, grabbed the second one for himself. He took a swig of the water, and it was blessedly cool, must be some kind of magical bag to stay cool, he took another drink. He went back into the saddle bag and grabbed a package, inside there were small brown squares, handed some to Michelle and took some for himself.

The food squares were a mixture of nuts and berries, he could taste what felt like raspberries and pecans with honey. It was a perfect snack for being out where they were, it seemed like it was simple to make and carry with them. He took one last drink from his skin to help the food go down and he was ready. The break came to an end, and they were off once again, the lizards picked up their speed, it felt a little faster than before, felt like something was wrong. Lassira turned to look behind them, shook his head, yup something was wrong, Pepe was not sure if looking behind him was a good idea.

The lizards were now moving even faster, they were trying to outrun something, he felt the wind pick up, he could not help himself, he turned his head to look behind them. He should have just kept on looking ahead, the ‘ignorance is bliss’ saying came to mind at that point. If he would have not looked behind him, he would not have seen the dust storm that they were racing. It was miles long in either direction, with dust that touched the few wisps of clouds he had seen.

Why, why did this happen? He was sure this was one of those stupid things that they threw at them on purpose just to build up the drama. Now he hated all three floors of this dungeon, hated them with a passion, he was not going to give the nodes a five-star review on the dungeon that was for sure. He was not sure how fast they were moving, but they were able to maintain ahead of the dust storm, but would they be able to outrun it? That was the important question, and he really hoped the answer was that they would.

An hour of running passed, he looked back to see what the storm looked like, and again he wished he had just kept on looking forward. It looked much closer, so the answer to the earlier question was that they might not be able to make it. The wall of sand he saw looked like it was made of solid rock, he could see nothing of the sand dunes he had seen before. While the sand dunes were depressing the wall was super scary, and he take depressing over scary any day.

Another hour passed and the update for the sandstorm was not good, it was much closer, and that was bad, really bad. His wild guess was that the thing would reach them in an hour, his imagination unfortunately was good. And what he imagined shook him, the sand would strip the skin off his bones and that just sounded painful, not something he thought he wanted to experience.

Off in the distance in front of them stood a very large rock formation, something they could use for cover and protection against the storm. The lizards knew that it was their only hope, and even though they were probably exhausted they moved even faster. He could feel sand picking up behind them and he did not want to look back and see how close it was, if he was feeling it, then that meant it would not be long before it hit them. There only hope was the rock formation in front of them, he was not religious, but he started to pray at that moment, please God let us make it.