The Last Effort
The city of Silvermore was at the border of Duopis and Unustria Kingdoms but we considered ourselves a part of the Duopis Kingdom.
The main reason for this was that the area closer to the border was mostly a hot, humid, and dangerous desert, therefore no city or province of the Unustria Kingdom would want to claim us because we were simply too far away to manage.
On the other hand, the nearby Tafilat city of the Duopis Kingdom made it possible for the officials of the Luopis province to claim the town as their own. We had to provide a tribute in exchange for some vague 'protection terms and guarantees' and an opportunity to have the prestigious 'teachers' of the Kingdom visit us for totem carving and awakening.
Since the desert was so unruly and calamitous that the Unustria Kingdom didn't bother to contest for us, I found it hard to believe Sis Hin's words when she said that we could see the Kingdom if we climbed on top of it.
Sure, the view might be fascinating from the top but it was so far up that it would be evening even if we managed to reach there safely. Moreover, considering the number of rumours surrounding the Crimson lake, that we would be able to see through the desert and witness the faraway kingdom of Unustria, was bound to be a myth, just another rumour.
Too bad it's something neither Sister Hin nor the younger me could think of at that time. I was still slightly confused, but I had already understood that my friend was determined there, so there was no point in continuing to persuade the girl whose eyes were dazzled and whose chest was heaving with excitement.
Step by step, we began the last part of our journey. What seemed to be something right in front of our eyes turned out to be a really long distance away, like a mirage that kept on disappearing and reforming seconds later.
Perhaps, we were feeling like that because we had expected that it was a few minutes a walk to our destination at most, so when the wait was extended, it was bound to exhaust us.
I popped open the canteen of water I had carried along and took two huge gulps before continuing again. With this I successfully exhausted the water I had brought. Now, only Sister Hin had some left for our entire journey.
During the time I stopped, Sister Hin had time to organize her thoughts and as we started to walk, she slowly began talking again,
"Hey, Tiff, I wasn't sure when I would get another chance to sneak out with you. Since you agreed this time, I wanted to visit the most interesting place in my mind the most.
If you want to return, I won't blame you. You're my sister, Tiff."
I only responded by shaking my head sideways to alleviate her worries. Even if I wanted to go back, it was much more important to me to take Sister Hin back as well, but since she wanted to explore the place, I didn't want to miss the chance either.
Like she said, who knows when we would have gotten another chance to sneak out of the city again. Another important point that made me stop hesitating was that we needed to go back to our place before dinner time, so it was either this or that.
We had to make our choices quickly, we couldn't afford to waste our time on that, and both fortunately and unfortunately Sister Hin was making those choices for me.
Gradually, by the time the sun had shifted slightly west to the horizon, the image in front of our eyes magnified tenfold. I was sure that if the shadow of the giant butte was falling on me, I wouldn't feel even a bit of heat on me.
It was something formed naturally over an unknown period but I couldn't say the same for crevices, perhaps that's where the battle between the two forces in history had been fought.
When we had looked at the Crimson Lake from far away, it had appeared to be the most natural and perfect artistic monument formed over a long period, something that fills an empty heart with an urge to sigh at the glory of nature, but now that we were looking at it up close, it was full of holes and crevices, that were, most certainly, not a creation of nature like we had expected but something artificially added later on.
Perhaps, it was a hideout of the Lunar Frask tribe, or perhaps even a Hybrid Vampire stronghold. We were just about to find out.
Sister Hin kept looking at those crevices and holes with an attentive expression as if she was trying to poke open the layers of dark curtains inside.
One by one she continued assessing them and started moving around the butte. But it was too huge to actually circle around, so I believed it was bound to take time.
Who would've known that in just 10 minutes, my adventurous best friend had managed to find the crevice she was searching for.
"THIS IS IT!"
Her shout captured my attention as I ran towards her location and saw her running back as well.
We met a few moments later, Sis Hin's face was lit up in excitement and anticipation.
She didn't leave me hanging and told me what it was about.
Apparently, she had found the crevice that led to the top of the butte from the travel narrative Uncle Albert had read to her. It seemed impossible to describe one crevice out of thousands so accurately that one could find it out after such a long time but before I could question her, she grabbed my wrist and began leading me towards the place.
It was a 10-foot tall diagonal crevice. Probably, it looked just like how a crack in the walls would look to rats.
Peering inside, I found it completely dark and silent, as per my expectations. After just a few moments of peeking inside, I was already grappling with an unknown fear inside my heart.
I quickly turned my sight away from the crevice and looked at Sis Hin, and saw her smiling back at me.
"You don't believe in ghosts right, Tiff?"
"There are scarier things in the dark, sis."
"Hehe, the scariest things are in the light."
"Um, isn't the sun, like the scariest?"
"Hmm, it might be scary to us, but it might be different for other suns?"
"There are OTHER suns?"
"Well, for starters, isn't the moon one?"
"NO, IT'S NOT, sis."
"Shh, don't scream, Tiff, you might scare the dark."
"Erm, there still might be–ahh"
We were holding a fun little conversation like how we usually do in a state of extreme nervousness to alleviate some of the fear that was filling me up.
Our little banter in front of that diagonal crevice was interrupted by a movement I saw in the background behind Sister Hin. It scared the daylights out of me.
It was a yellow desert scorpion with a stinger bigger than its own body. Since I considered myself a young adventurer, it wasn't the presence of the scorpion that frightened me enough to scream but its complete absence.
It had managed to crawl inches away from me and I wasn't even aware of it.
My scream had also managed to capture Sister Hin's attention to the strange beast.
When she saw its appearance, she took a couple of steps back in panic as well.
Then, we looked at each other and observed the paranoia in the other's eyes. I was about to laugh and make another joke but as it turned out, I was completely right to be feeling paranoid.
With a closer look, I had managed to spot at least 10 of those creepy scorpion things around the opening and who knows how many more would have been waiting for us once we stepped inside that cave.
It sent a chill down my spine just imagining that outcome. Again, I was reminded of how dangerous it was to come in such a place unsupervised and unawakened.
We hadn't even taken one step inside and we had almost died.
"It's the Buriqs scorpion. They camouflage themselves and move in groups." Sister Hin suddenly said. When she saw me looking at her in askance, she continued, "I've read about it somewhere. Don't worry, even if that thing stung you, it would only cause your feet to feel numb for a while, and then it would be alright. Usually, the problem only occurs when a Buriqs group is too large, which I don't think is a case here."
"...um, Sis Hin, you don't feel like the scorpion group is big enough?"
I said while looking at the chameleon-like scorpions and taking another few steps back.
These creatures were nightmares in real life. How could Sister Hin calmly look at them without panicking was beyond me.
She held my shoulders and said in a dangerously calm tone, "If there really was an entire Buriqs Scorpion group here, we wouldn't be standing and talking but lying in the desert as unknown corpses being gnawed by them. You see, they don't attack as long as they don't have the confidence."
My body shuddered when I thought of her words.