The Game Before the Fall

Chapter 28: The Sand's Heart (Part 1)

Chapter 28: The Sand's Heart

Ardent Friend:

"Phew that's so much better!" Erin stretched her virtual body as we met on the ground floor of the inn. "I can kind of still feel how tired my muscles were but in game it doesn't affect my movements at all!"

"You're lucky," Vanter began to comment. "Without Zen's massages your body would be twice as sore tomorrow. The third day is even worse."

"Though," I added, "it just means you can go harder faster."

"Yeah," Vanter pondered, "don't you think Zen was a bit too into it today? I mean she's always intense about our training sessions but today felt even more so."

"Really?" Erin looked at us perplexed. "She's seemed about the same as my first time with her."

"I think she was just targeting us," I agreed with Vanter. "She had an odd look in her eyes. It was the same look she had before she put the moves on my Dad. I'm honestly a bit scared of what secret she's trying to contemplate now."

"I guess we'll find out tonight," Vanter sighed. While we trained together in the mornings with the girls. The late evening was when Vanter and I trained Aura with Zen. The lessons we had then could get even more intense and from Vanter's expression he wasn't looking forward to it.

Now that we were in Paruvan, a major city, the amount of players we were seeing increased substantially. While only the top 5% of players could reach it, being the new update, the desert city was attracting a lot of attention. Popular players were posting guides and leading discussions of the Destrian Desert and there were still plenty of secrets left to seek out. Due to that Erin had to hide her hair and face. When it came down to it, she was incredibly popular and despite being on break became more so when she defeated Crozen's championship team in our duel. Vanter and I could still move about unknown, but opposite to the other day, it was now Erin who wore a hood and mask.

"So where to?" Erin asked as we began to walk the city streets. The city itself was quite crowded with NPCs. Despite the variety of races and people of all kinds, the buildings all reflected the same dull colour of sandstone. If it weren't for the brightly coloured fabrics the people wore or the various banners that hung around the city, the place would look dryer still. Due to frequent sandstorms, only the most well off could afford to decorate the outside of their houses.

I checked the list of equipment we had been gathering since yesterday, "We've got almost all we need. Vanter how did your rumour check go?"

"Perfect," he gestured confidently. "Everything seems about what we expected. Though it's pretty clear that the NPCs are trying to push away from the Sand's Heart."

"Obviously," Erin huffed. "The soft level cap was just raised to 60. The Sand's Heart is a dungeon recommended for full raid teams of level 80s and that's just for the first floor! Only idiots like you two would be trying to get there now."

"You mean like us three," Vanter corrected her.

"It wasn't my idea though," she sighed. "If you didn't insist, I'd rather be playing with Aria and Endi. Their doing some crazy things, but at least they're not suicidal."

"It's fine," I laughed. "Like we said yesterday, we're only taking a look."

"Sure, sure," Erin begrudgingly accepted it.

It took some time to travel to Sand's Heart. The city of Paruvan was a week's journey by foot from the centre of the desert where the Sand's Heart was located. The journey however could be cut down to just over one day by hiring a sand sailor. For most players, hiring one was an exorbitant cost however with our relations with Paruvan already high it was easy enough to grab one, much to the jealously of the nearby players.