By the time we’d traveled a mile into the cloud layer, my stats were almost entirely diminished.

  {Grind}

  //100 Hp 20 Str//

  Rose struggled in the sand, sweaty hair sticking to her face. She managed to brush it back, which worked for a little while, before it inevitably fell back down. “We’ve barely entered the second area, and it’s already insufferable.”

  {Rose : //25 Hp 30 Str//}

  With every few steps, our stats were suppressed. From what little I’d been able to figure out, the more stats you had, the faster they were suppressed, and as your stats were suppressed, they were suppressed less.

  At this point, virtually everyone in our party had the same stats. And none of us were doing great.

  Junior panted, tugging at his white tank top. “No fair,” he muttered, watching Sern.

  {Sern : 10 Hp 0 Str}

  Sern plodded along in the sand, watching for any signs of bugs or flowers. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she wouldn’t be finding any.

  “How come she’s doing just dandy, but Axel’s panting and sweating!” Junior grumbled.

  “Sern always has her stats suppressed, so this must feel normal,” I stated. “That, and she’s got at least a little heat resistance.”

  “Axxxxeellll,” Axel grumbled. His hair was so sweaty, it’d plastered to his face in a shell, making it nearly impossible to see where he was going.

  Junior let out a groan. “Axel, aren’t you from the third area? This should be a breeze!”

  “Axel.”

  “Okay, fine. Being native to the third area and being a third area monster who spawns in a first area cage are, admittedly, completely different,” Junior grumbled. “But you’ve gotta have some sort of secret ability or something! ”

  Axel rubbed his metal jaws, making a series of clicking noises that I couldn’t quite pick up on.

  Junior twitched. “Axel, that’s a lousy explanation.”

  “Hang on,” Rose hissed, jabbing her brother in the side. “How come your stats are so high?”

  I glanced over Junior’s head, revealing his stats.

  {Better Grind (Junior) : //50 Hp 50 Str//}

  “It’s pretty simple when you get down to it,” he stated. “I’m the best.”

  Axel puffed, dropping to his knees. The barrel rolled out of his grip and he shrieked in pain, clawing at the bolts in his metal jaw. “AXEL!”

  {AXEL : //2,000 Hp 300 Str//}

  We waited until he got back to his feet, then continued onward.

  “Is he alright?” I whispered.

  “The heat’s starting to get to him,” Junior stated, pressing a hand against Axel’s mouth. He recoiled, stuffing the sizzling palm into relatively colder sand. “That’s hot!”

  Sern poured water from the barrel into her hands and brought it against Axel’s bolt. Once the liquid turned to steam with a satisfying hiss, Sern repeated the process for his other bolt, then his face.

  Rose ignored the commotion, keeping both eyes on the ground in front of her. She had reached the point where she could only focus on the next step.

  I did the same.

  We walked another mile through the sand.

  And then another mile after that.

  By that point, our stats had dropped to almost nothing.

  “Hey, Sis, you alright?” Junior asked, forcing a laugh as he jabbed her in the side.

  Rose kept walking.

  Her brother’s tone quavered. “Sis? You’re starting to look pale.”

  “I’m fine,” Rose said.

  {Rose : 2 Hp 1 Str}

  She stopped, clutching her chest with white knuckles.

  {Rose : //1 Hp 0 Str//}

  “Sorry Sir, but, I…I…” her eyes flickered, and she fell into the sand.

  Junior shouted out for Axel, and he effortlessly picked her up, setting the goblin ontop of our water barrel.

  After another mile, Junior dropped.

  I slung him over my shoulder and kept on walking.

  The layer of cloud couldn’t go on much longer.

  We lost track of time and distance. Axel and I just dragged ourselves from one step to the other. Over and over and over again.

  {AXEL : //20 Hp 2 Str//}

  He made a grunt, his arms shaking from exhaustion.

  “I know,” I whispered. My muscles had started spasming, but I kept my grip on Junior. “We’re close. We’ve got to be close.”

  Sern glanced between the two of us, obviously concerned. Despite the enormous pressure of the air, her status hasn't changed in the slightest. If necessary, she could run back to the city for help. Maybe somebody would come to our aid.

  Then, all at once, the layer of cloud gave way to an endless blue sky.

  It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  Axel staggered, dropping both Rose and the water barrel onto the ground. Sern ran over to help, but there wasn’t much she could do. He was already unconscious.

  {Grind : //1 Hp 0 Str//}

  Cold seeped into my veins, and Junior dropped from my grip. My vision blurred, then darkened, and I’d fallen into a dream.

  …

  Jasper raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got to be joking.”

  The marble piece clicked on the board. I leaned back, grinning like an idiot. “What? Jealous?”

  “Of what?” He snorted, tossing pieces from his hand. “Losing a stupid board game you invented?”

  “Astrel Chess is not a stupid board game,” I snapped. “And I’m just as likely to lose as anybody else. That’s good game design.”

  Jasper glared from across the table. “Mark, the game’s ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. Not even chess, really.”

  “What? Tired of losing?” I challenged, raising an eyebrow.

  Jasper hesitated, and a smile split across his face.

  Finally, he burst out laughing, reaching for another beer. “Alright Mark, set it back up.”

  …

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  A warm hand pressed against my face, prying an eye open.

  “Mhphjh?” I mumbled.

  Rippling pain washed over my body, followed by a tingling numbness that gradually faded away.

  “He’s awake,” Rose said, with a sigh of relief. Junior sat beside her, poking my leg with a dried stick.

  “How long was I out?” I asked, wiping sand from my face. The sun burned against my skin and the ground underneath was hard and cracked. “Where…am I?”

  “You’ve been out for a while,” Junior said, pointing to the sun. “Don’t know how long though. I’m assuming we’re somewhere in the second area.” His eyes lit up. “Hey, what if we went the wrong way into the third area?”

  The third area? No, we’d be dead by now if that were true.

  I looked at Rose, then Junior, beginning to remember something important.

  “I thought you two fell unconscious?”

  “So did you and Axel,” Rose said. “But we’re alright now. I mean, we’re hopelessly lost and weakened, but at least everybody’s still alive.”

  “How are you awake?” I grumbled. “You shouldn’t be able to wake up with just a single hit point.”

  I sighed, summoning up my recent notifications. Right at the top, there was a notice.

  {Notice}

  [Your sense of self has been weathered.]

  [It has grown stronger, resisting the stifling air.]

  ~

  //1 Hp 1 Str//

  “You don’t have a notification that explains everything to you?” I asked.

  Rose shook her head. “That’d sure be nice.”

  “I guess we almost died and that made us stronger?” I guessed. There was obviously still something we were missing, since we had a lot more trouble moving through the cloud than I would have expected. From the way Asiel and Union officers talked about crossing over the areas, it’d sounded easy.

  I frowned, scanned the endless rocky desert. The rolling clouds stretched long into the distance, before curving away from sight.

  The border between the areas is curved. It’d probably be a good idea to remember that.

  I took a breath of air, and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

  “We need water,” I mumbled.

  “Sorry Sir, but Axel drank it all,” Rose stated.

  “He needs it,” I sighed, getting to my feet.

  Axel laid sprawled on the ground, panting hard. Sern had curled up in a ball next to him, asleep. Apparently, she’d had no issue going through the cloud. That’d also be good to remember.

  “There’s got to be a town around here somewhere, right?” I asked.

  Junior and Rose shrugged.

  If people crossed over the border all the time, I’d have expected somebody to set up water stations or offices.

  Unless the second area was really, really big, or so dangerous that any permanent structure would be unreasonable.

  I swallowed.

  “Axel, wake up. We’re getting moving.”

  He grunted, slamming his fist on the sand, before hefting himself up. His strength had dipped lower during the night, forcing him to leave the barrel behind.

  {AXEL : //3 Hp 5 Str//}

  Junior read the notification. He suddenly perked up. “Hey, pull up my stats, would you?”

  “You’re up to something, aren’t you?” I asked.

  He grinned.

  “Fine,” I said, glancing above his head and grabbing the thin pane.

  Junior gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, concentrating as hard as he could.

  {Junior : //4 Hp 1 Str//}

  His legs shook until they gave out from under him, and he collapsed in a heap, gasping for air.

  {Junior : //2 Hp 0 Str//}

  “What was that about?” Rose chuckled.

  “I’m stronger than you!” Junior cackled back, throwing his fists in the air.

  Rose stopped. “You are not.”

  “Am too! Pull up your stats!”

  Rose and Junior chased each other around in circles, before they dropped to their knees, exhausted from a couple seconds of exertion.

  “This place is insane,” Rose hissed.

  “We need to find shelter,” I said, trying to ignore a new set of notifications that popped into view. “And we need water. Bad.”

  “Axxxel.”

  “No Axel you can’t sleep,” Junior huffed. “We need to keep moving.”

  “A.XXX..E.L”

  “Oh, eeeaaattt. Sorry, sand in my ears,” Junior stated. “Axel says he needs some food or he’s going to start eating people.”

  Axel smacked Junior on the back of his head, bowling him over.

  “Sorry,” Junior groaned. “He needs water.”

  “Axxelll.”

  “I mean he is getting hungry, and he might eat somebody, ” Junior sighed. “But I wouldn’t worry. Axel’s a big softie, so he’d eat you real quick.”

  A seam formed along Axel’s muzzle, and it cracked up, scooping up several large rocks, which he then began chewing on.

  Hang on, would he eat somebody?

  “Water,” I said, forcing myself to focus. “That’s our core priority.”

  While the suppression was worst within the cloud wall, it was still pretty bad in the middle of the desert. Our lips were cracked and our mouths were dry.

  Heat rose in the distance, mimicking the rippling blue of the ocean, taunting us.

  Without a map or guide, we could only walk forward, shielding our faces with hands and arms. If the second area was set out like the first, there’s be a town in the center.

  After an hour of walking, we hadn’t seen so much as a sign of life.

  “Are we there yet?” Junior groaned.

  Rose started glaring, before realizing she was just too exhausted to fight with her brother. So far, the trek across the desert had been relatively quiet.

  “We’re close, ”I said, half to myself. “Very close.”

  While Sern was much better at handling suppression than the rest of us, she struggled in the desert heat, trailing behind the rest of us.

  An hour, there were spots in my vision.

  The notifications, which I’d been ignoring, forced themselves to be recognized, flashing an angry red.

  {Thirst VI : Indefinite}

  [You are thirsty]

  [Get water to cleanse this effect.]

  [This effect hampers mental processing and physical movement.]

  [Failure to get water in (2:59:45) will result in (Instant Death)]

  The others have similar effects, in varying degrees of severity.

  {Axel : Thirst VII : Indefinite}

  {Better Grind : Thirst III : Indefinite}

  {Sern : Thirst IX : Indefinite}

  {Rose : Thirst VI : Indefinite}

  “What’s that?” Rose asked, glancing over my shoulder at the notifications.

  “Nothing important,” I snapped, closing with a passing thought. Panic would only waste more energy. “We should walk a little faster, that’s all.”

  “We’re not going to die, are we?” Junior asked.

  “OF COURSE NOT!” Rose snapped, shaking her brother. “Sir Grind said we’d be fine, so we will be!”

  Another hour passed.

  I was starting to get concerned for Sern and Axle. Sern had already fainted once, and her thirst was getting high.

  Axel, however, had been constantly acquiring higher and higher levels of thirst.

  {Axel : Thirst XXII : Indefinite}

  [Failure to get water in (00:59:45) will result in (Instant Death)]

  Less than an hour now.

  He was panting hard, too dehydrated to sweat. Axel scratched his metal muzzle. It’s been baking in the sunlight and where it connects with skin, there was a sizzling sound.

  “That’s gotta be uncomfortable,” Junior whimpered, steading himself on his sister. “Sis, isn’t there anything we can do?”

  “Get off me,” Rose snapped. “We’ve just got to focus on surviving.” Junior squeezed her arm, and she sighed, but didn’t shove him away.

  “Axxxelll,” Axel hissed, scratching the bolts in his muzzle. He looked behind him, to Junior and Sern, then lowered his head, picking up the pace.

  Sern fainted again, and I managed to catch her. When she didn’t wake up, I lifted her into my arms and kept on walking.

  It took another thirty minutes before we spotted the caravan.

  Rose laughed, though the sand in her throat made it sound like cracking fire.

  “We’re saved?” Junior whispered.

  A grin spread across my face. “People means water, Junior.”

  Merchants rushed toward us, grabbing Sern and Axel, filling jugs for them.

  {Axel : [Thrift XVI has been cleansed]}

  {Sern : [Thirst XIV has been cleansed]}

  I tried thanking them, but strength had suddenly left my body as the exhaustion hit, all at once.

  A stir shook the crowd of rescuers as a woman stepped forward.

  “What do we have here?” The woman asked. She wore a long white shroud with a golden-yellow paper scarf tied around her neck, contrasting against the black shrouds of the people around us.

  The others bowed respectfully, shuffling out of her way.

  Beyond a glance over my head, the woman didn’t give me any attention, focusing entirely on my companions. “Are they well?”

  “Well enough,” a servant said, bowing again. “They were severely dehydrated and suffering from exhaustion.” The servant had shining marks on her neck and wrists that I couldn’t quite make out. Perhaps they signalled some level of authority, since none of the other rescuers went anywhere near either of the two.

  “The elf is a questling,” the servant finished.

  The woman clicked her tongue. “Give her water, but no more. Bring the others to me.” She paused for a moment, before letting out a sigh. “And feed the boy.”

  Another rescuer knelt down, scooping food into my mouth, before vanishing into the crowd.

  “You are welcome, by the way,” the woman said, before she left with the rest of my party following close behind her.

  “Thank…you,” I whispered.

  She smiled.

  My vision blackened, and I fell unconscious.

  // {Notice} //

  Hi! Want to fight human trafficking? Whether you’ve got money or time here are two organizations I wholly recommend.

  Race Day — Thirty for Freedom.

  Donate - Venture