Huntik: The Fate Of Destiny

14. Timbuktu's Ruins

The Huntik team was digging with shovels in the scorching heat. During this time, they managed to rediscover more buildings. Unfortunately, most of them looked like brick or clay huts. The building that Vale wanted the team to thoroughly inspect was supposed to be one of the most important buildings in the city. But as one could expect - amidst the ruins of the city, it was hard to recreate its former glory from hundreds of years ago. In this situation, the most sensible thing to do was to examine each building from the inside. Lok and his team knew that after uncovering the entire city, they would have to patrol Timbuktu far and wide. Unless luck was on their side.

Den drove the shovel into the ground and pulled out a water bottle from his backpack. He unscrewed the cap to take a sip. Unfortunately, not even a drop was left.

"Damn it." he cursed, slightly annoyed.

"Did you run out of water, kid? There's an oasis south from here. Refill your supplies and come back to us." one of the archaeologists spoke up, noticing the whole situation.

"It would be nice if someone helped me out at this moment." he muttered.

Harrison tossed his shovel aside and took out his canteen from his backpack bag, then approached and gave it to his brother.

"Take a sip and refill mine too." boy returned to his place and resumed digging sand.

Older Fears thanked his brother and quickly drank everything from bottle. Then boy went to prepare for the excursion. Not far from the excavation site, the team had set up their tent. That's where Den headed. When he entered, he took the towel off his neck and cooled it with an Augerfrost. It was a trick to cool off for a moment. He laid it back in the same place. Then he put on a gray canvas poncho to protect his clothes from the sand and possibly gain a bit of shade. He put on sunglasses to protect his eyes from the very bright sun.

Den headed south. But not alone, as Cherit had offered his company quite some time ago. During that time, a little titan had been sitting in the tent, simply being at loose end.

After distancing themselves from the town, the promised oasis was still nowhere in sight. All around the young seeker and titan was nothing but sand. And even more sand. They walked among smaller and larger sand dunes.

"Compass couldn't have gone crazy." he muttered to himself, staring at the slightly wavering arrow next to the letter S.

When the boy looked ahead, he noticed a group of titans in the distance. He stopped walking. A small gargoyle looked at his friend questioningly.

"Cherit, do you see that too?" Den asked.

"I'm more wondering how we managed to turn around when we've been heading south the whole time." titan answered.

"But there are titans over there. What are you talking about?" boy raised an eyebrow.

Cherit guessed what it could be about. The gargoyle saw Lok and the others digging in the sand. Meanwhile, Den must have seen something different than him.

"It must be a mirage." the little titan concluded.

"I thought the same for a moment. Well..." Fears shrugged. "Let's keep going. We'll see what happens."

As they approached the spot, everything they had seen before, it vanished into thin air. Den felt increasingly thirsty. Spending the second half of August in the desert didn't sound very optimistic. Without regular hydration, it could lead to dehydration.

"A perfect mission for us." boy muttered, stroking his chin.

He pondered the meaning of the sentence that came from Vale's mouth when he assigned this mission.