2 Chapter 1: Compass

The sensation of falling, overwhelmed you. You had been trained since birth to be death incarnate on the battlefield and despite your extensive experiences and training, little could prepare you for the sensation of gravity to grasp you firmly and yank your great bulk downwards with a firm hand.

A primal scream ripped its way free from you as you fell from grace, a manly scream, that vibrated in a way that could if one were generous be called acoustic, inside your great helmet while you flapped like a newborn bird in the air, albeit one lacking wings completely.

The landscape around you, and primarily below you, was utterly alien to you. Sand stretched like an ocean across the vast distance, that and glassy black mountains was all you had time to register. Barely at that before you impacted the ground, a geyser of sand exploding around you due to the collision with the ground. You would have screamed from pain but you were already lightheaded from the lack of precious oxygen.

No rest for the wicked, you thought as gravity took a hold of your heavily armored form once again and you began rolling down the sand dune, building up momentum as you went. The tumble flung sand into the air.

You came to a stop with a deep grunt, after what felt like a minute of being a human ball. Another minute stretched as you laid there, aching everywhere while breathing deeply, the scorching hot dry air thick enough to choke on. You were in surprisingly good shape, a miracle. Wherever you were, you had been healed. Not completely, just enough to not die from your wounds. Every motion of your body still hurt greatly even breathing.

Staying there at the bottom of the sand pit for eternity would have been preferable, such was your exhaustion. In fact It would have been wonderful were it not for the heat. You glared, cursing, at the sun hanging far above you in the sky, not a victim to gravity like you.

Your master crafted artificer armour was inscribed with a vast array of arcanic runes, a meager few dedicated to environmental control, dealing with excess heat from exertion, the environment and enemy spells.

Regardless of the fact that you had never witnessed them failing from mundane matters as weather even in the harshest environments you had journey through - here they were, failing under the relentless onslaught of the sun.

The temperature within your armour was rising rapidly, and with it your sweat. You needed to find cover from the sun. Its position told the tale of worse to come, having not reached its zenith yet, and he remembered his training, that he was good at. All natives in heat scorched kingdoms hid from the midday sun.

You raised yourself out of the hole in the sand you had created, your gauntlets sinking into the sand when placed to support your weight. Heaving with exertion you managed to stand up straight. You looked around, searching through the hot shimmering air for landmarks.

To the left you spot a strangely shaped, vast mountain range in the far distance. It would be a long journey, perilous possibly. To the right of you was the sand dune that impacted. You glare at the reminder, pain rising up at the memory of your fall, reminding you of its existence. You shift your weight from one leg to the other, sighing at the lessening of the pain in your knee.

Ahead, you see nothing but more sand in a large valley, the landscape seemed to go downwards in front of you though. Beyond gravity as the sun might be, water stilled followed her gentle whispers. Your parched throat made itself aware and you reached for your canteen at you belt. A dire situation became worse when your hand grasped air.

Looking towards your rear, back at the you shaped hole in the ground that was gradually being filled with sand, you sift around with your hands, looking for your canteen.

You find nothing but more sand. Ceasing your search, you find yourself looking at another rising sand dune, it was higher than the one you impacted, and briefly you entertained the thought of hiking up the dune for the vantage point it offered.

You took a deep breath, through your nostrils to spare water and began walking, out of curiosity you glanced upwards into the sky, panning your eyes around like the light of a lighthouse, searching for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. Naught but plain blue skies and the occasional rare cloud floating loftily above. There was nothing that could explain your arrival here.

Whatever took you from the throne room was invisible to your senses. You hesitated, activating a special rune near the slits of your helmet, expecting the world to take a gray coloured hint only for a bloom of heat followed by sparks to give you a mild electric shock. The rune was malfunctioning.

You cussed, reaching up with your hands and removed your helmet. You shook your head, hair slick with sweat, flinging the stinky smell around you in an arc. A metal hand waving slightly in front of your nose, removing any lingering smoke. No wind was present down here you realized, memories of the earlier fierce gales luring your eyes upwards.

An impossible sight greeted you and fear gripped you hard. How you didn't realize it before, was beyond you and a hand of yours reached instinctively for your weapon as your hearts began pumping inhuman amounts of blood through your body, your blood thickening as a cocktail of potions got dumped into your bloodstream, priming yourself to fight an enemy that didn't exist.

You may be known for being foolhardy but not even you were a fool enough to fight the sun, coloured wrong as it might be, a striking red color rather than the orange-yellow one you remembered.

You were far from home, you realized, and worse you were far from home without your brothers.

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What direction did you head towards?

[A] Towards the mountains

[B] Down the valley

[C] Vantage Point