It was a hard two days’ journey. The heat of the sun started to melt the ends of the rook’s pieces, and the seal was getting more and more worn by the weather. The journey was endless. Boring. Repetitive and redundant. Rook used his fruit jerky but it was not long before they had run out. It began to feel like that little black dot would never grow. But soon, they crossed over the dune, and they saw it. It was a sand temple. Not very big. Created out of rock mined and brought in from elsewhere. It had carvings of snakes on the two pillars that led to the entrance. Rook smiled, a tear streaming down his cheek as he looked at it, “Look, Bobby.” He said, There it is.

  He rode up to the project. The door was wide open, and sand had been kicking in for quite a while.

  “Hmm,” said Rook, “Not great.” He got off the sealhorn and they both walked into the temple. Rook took his sword out and kept it on him just in case. He tiptoed in. There were chairs on the ground. There was a monkey. Plant life bloomed inside. The tapestry on the wall had been torn, but showed a great Coatl god with a feathery headdress dancing in front of the moon.

  “Oh no,” Said Rook, “This place is abandoned. If only there were some kind of mummy lord or even some gnolls. Someone who would know us. Sorry, Bobby. Dead end.”

  He turned over to the sealhorn. He was resting on his tucked in paws, panting heavily.

  “Not a total dead end. I studied sand temples for my World Cultures badge. The reason that sand temples are built where they are is that someone, sometime, found some water. Come. Stay here, I’ll find you some and we’ll get you going.”

  Rook crept further into the sand temple. There was a downstairs somewhere that would lead him to the water reservoir. He found an obsidian black door behind the plant life. Instead of a door knob, there was a font. A miniature fountain the size of a dinner plate hanging in the middle right where a door knob might be. Rook bent over to read the inscription in Umbral. It said:

  The Enemy Draws Blood

  A Harbor Is Shown

  “Drat.” Said the rook, “It’s a blood door. If a chess piece like me had blood to give I would. I know I just saw a monkey.”

  The temple roof prevented the harsh sun from getting in. Combined with the moisture from the reservoir nearby created an oasis effect inside this very temple. Some seeds that had been carried throug the wind and through bird and insect droppings had sprouted inside. Rook could have farmed some moisture, by placing his bag over a plant and letting the condensation create water, but that would have taken hours, and the sealhorn already looked bad.

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  His eyes scanned the flora for the monkey he’d seen. Then he spotted it. Dead on the ground with its tongue out. Rook felt a shift inside him. He stuck his sword out again.

  The chess piece closed his eyes and spoke his class effect into existence, “Players On The Board.” He and the sealhorn lit up white. He could see Bobby through the walls. Kashu Coatl hiding in the bushes lit up in a black outline. They were directly in front of Rook, hiding beneath the greenery with their hands on their spears.

  Rook turned to look right at them. The Coatl did not know the effect of the spell but knew they had been caught. The Kashu Coatl were much larger than the tribe that Jasssper came from. When they stood in a resting standing position on their large, thick tails, they were human-sized. They also possessed two scaly arms. They popped out with their spears and hissed at Rook.

  “Not one step,” Said Rook.

  If they could understand him, they did not care to listen. They stabbed at Rook with their spears. Rook dodged out of the way of one and parried with the other. The third and fourth stabbings were more difficult to prevent. The two spears stabbed into him.

  He screamed. He dropped his weight on his right side and stabbed the Coatl in front of him right in its neck. The blood splurted from the wound and doused Rook’s tunic. Rook attempted to pull his blade out of the Coatl’s neck, but the Coatl grabbed on. When Rook turned looked at the caotl, the coatl with the sword stabbed into it’s neck was smiling.

  “Give it back.” Said Rook. Give it back!” He placed his stick foot on the coatl’s chest and pushed off, “Woah!” He fell backward but had the sword with him. The Coatl with the blood gushing down his neck ran toward the door and placed his dripping wound over the font.

  The other Coatl surrounded Rook and heaved their spears down on him. He rolled one way, all three spears slammed into the ground. They picked their spears up and tried again. He rolled the opposite direction. The same thing happened. He stabbed one of the coalt in the bottom half. The coatl spit acid on Rook’s face.

  “Someone didn’t get their badge in Inorganics’ Vulnerabilities!” He said. Two of the coatl turned around and laid their heavy tails atop Rook. He tried to break free but the two thick tails wrapped around him. The Coatl that was hemorraghing blood had finally filled the mini altar. The font drank the blood up, having it disappear into the stone. The snake head on top of it grew red and the sound of the vacuum seal of the door releasing made a whooshing sound.

  One of the Coatl lifted him up by the tail. The coatl with the cut on his neck attempted to move down stairs but couldn’t make it. They collapsed on the stairs from lack of blood. The second Coatl picked his comrade up and walked him down.

  “Get your hands off me!”

  Rook struggled as the Coatl walked him down. He found him. He followed the direction of the arfing and saw the third coatl slithering forward, carrying Bobby in its tail as all of them went down the long black hallway to the basement of the Sand Temple.

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