The air was hot and the wind was blowing through his cloth mask like a fire onto his chapped lips. Solomon had been spending weeks on the trail to find a relic that his friend had told him about. As he walked along the top of a canyon he was following two hooded figures wearing brown robes with what would be a jute cord around their waists to tighten the burlap sack to their waists. They were wearing goggles of some sort that shined bright red and made it easy for Solomon to know when he needed to be more careful of his pursuit. He was convinced they knew nothing of him with how well trained he was in special operations in his unit before he left the racist totalitarian planet that enslaved him into their ranks for his special gifts. As the dim orange sun began to sink behind the desert ridge the two hooded figures decided to make camp under a depression in the canyon. The hooded figures both slept near a small fire they had built from some substance they had on them, it looks like a gelatinous cube that once lit seemed to burn forever. Solomon camped out on top of the canyon and was still vigilantly watching them. Solomon felt pretty comfortable that he was unseen on the account that neither of them were keeping watch while the other slept. Solomon chuckled and began to talk to himself “I really shouldn’t…if I fucked with them now then they’d know someone was following them…” he sat and watched them for what seemed like an eternity. Finally the silence of the dead planet got the better of Solomon and he decided he should see how intelligent or observant these shady figures were. Solomon got closer to their hideout by jumping down like a cat with no sound to his footsteps. He focused his mind on the flaming cube and he was able to get it to move. Solomon was happy to know that it was organic material that he could move with his abilities. Solomon with his light telekinesis gift, threw the flaming cube onto one of the hooded figures. The burlap sack immediately caught on fire and all Solomon could see was the burlap sack moving around and was thrown against the canyon wall of the burlap sack engulfed in flame, the cube kept on burning. “the red goggles…they are just floating?” Solomon felt his heart drop as what looked like a possessed pair of goggles were whipping around looking for what could throw a flaming gelatin cube at someone who was sleeping. Finally the goggles seemed to stop moving around and had laid down to go back to sleep. “Fuck” solomon whispered under his breath. He quietly escaped out of the canyon to a more secluded area on the ridge on the canyon. He knew of one person that would have the answer to what or who he was up against. He pulled out a metal tablet that every good space explorer has to communicate and gather knowledge. “Arias would know exactly who the hell these bastards are..”. Arias was a very well taught monk of the “Library of Golden Sparrow” and he had spent a long time exploring and doing things in the universe himself. Ring ring ring Arias always answered on the third ring “Solomon!!!” he exclaimed since it had been a whole 3 days since he heard from his favorite colleague. After Solomon had described in great detail what he had seen, Arias without a beat seemed to have the information. “Yeah! Those sound like Space Wraiths, they’re known servants of the Church of Zona, The Eternal Engulfed” they’re essentially ghosts that do what I do, but they do it for…” Arias paused, “they do it for what?” Solomon said annoyed “FOR EVIIIIILLLL” Arias jokingly said on the call. “Okay…so what would they be in the big nothing near the site you said that relic of the old world would be?” “well, the good news is that you’re definitely in the right area because they wouldn’t be there unless they truly believed that the relic was there, the bad news is that they’re pretty much invisible, and you burned what was helping you see them.”

  “Well what the hell am I supposed to do now?”

  “Well for starters….stop fucking around with your party tricks and pranking them….those red goggles are the only way they can see into the world, but the goggles are indestructible and I have no data of them being destroyed before”

  “Great. They’re not party tricks, they’re gifts.”

  “Well stop using your gifts for pranking then…” Arias said concerned

  “Look Solomon, it’s important to me that you know that those wraiths are dangerous and will kill you without a second thought. And they’re pretty unkillable.”

  “What’s your location?” Arias demanded

  “Here” Solomon hit a couple buttons on the device he was talking to Arias on and it sent his coordinates to Arias

  “Ohh!” Arias claimed as you could hear him flipping through maps and typing on his computer

  “You are in the part of The Big Nothing that has reported to have a temple that the libraries literature suggests the old world relic resides in, it’s one more days walk to the mouth of the canyon”

  “Well that’s good news, now I just have to deal with these root sacks?”

  “Yeah, be super careful…Solomon, I know you feel invincible…but you’re not, if I hurry I could probably be there by tomorrow morning! I’ll see you then and I can help you”

  “No!!” Solomon hissed under his breath,

  Solomon loved Arias for his book worm tendencies, but Arias would slow him down and command a more methodical approach to problems.

  “Well, too bad the elders here just said that I need to head there to ensure that you don’t fuck it up”

  “Did they?”

  “Haha no, but I’ll see you soon”

  Arias hung up on Solomon, he threw the com tablet across the desert in frustration knowing Arias meant well, however Solomon preferred to be solo to a fault. Solomon went to grab the tablet he flung across the sand, and when he went to grab it a blinding bright light engulfed the entire canyon and dilated Solomon's eyes and rendered him blind and he fell onto the desert floor.

  _____

  Arias jumped down from his little study and grabbed his backpack filled with supplies that he carefully picked out himself to ensure he’d always be somewhat prepared no matter what. It had all the normal stuff, rations of food that could have one drop of water and become an entire meal. An energy revolver that held 6 charges, along with extra charges. An energy knife that can cut through most organic and inorganic material. A set of blue goggles not dissimilar to the red goggles of the wraiths that Solomon had seen. Arias shoved his research tablet that was 3 times the size of Solomon's simple communication tablet. Arias needed it however on the account of always having millions of pages of research and literature, Arias was always reading or attending lectures and classes at the Church to gain knowledge and share the knowledge he’s gained in his past adventures. He hit a button and a giant metal door parted like two curtains away from one another. “Woo!” Arias said as he ran down the hallway to get to the garage of ships. He put the blue goggles on and he put giant gloves on and put on an oilskin jacket that reached down to his ankles. He walked down along a skyway to a giant flat area on top of the church that had his small cruiser called home when he wasn’t riding around. Arias jumped into the cruiser and flipped a couple of switches on a giant instrument cluster and he typed in the coordinates into another screen on the opposite side of his small ship cruiser. It was a bright shiny ship that he kept up, he did have a bird painted on the side of it of an extinct species from a distant time because he found them interesting.

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  “Alright Solomon, here I come” he said sternly as his cruiser began to rise off the roof of the church and it took off into the sky, it would be the last time Arias saw his home for a long time unfortunately. Arias knew a shortcut through the galaxy to get to the “Big Nothing” a lot quicker than he liked to tell people, because then they’d explore the big nothing more often if they knew how accessible it was. Arias preferred to keep it untouched from more simple folk and species that craved using the unexplored area for gain on their part due to the old world relics and treasures that still lingered there. Arias was enrolled into a church called “The Library of The Golden Spearow” when he was a very young boy when he tested very well in school. On the planet of Masart it was important to them to use the best minds to protect the library because it was the largest conservatory of knowledge in the universe and it was filled with “Monks” which were similar to Archaeologists before the church outlawed archaeology as pseudoscience. They essentially do the same thing but they’re called “Monks” instead. This was a decision that came from the eldest monk Viaduct. He was very long in the tooth and had been there since nearly the inception of The Library. He often made odd decisions and choices that revolved on the will of a mad man concerned with semantics to a point where he often demotivated the entire monk organization in the library with how slow he was to come with decisions or questionable decisions. But Arias did his best to not let his indentured servitude to an living artifact of the library affect his enthusiasm for his work in the field and his enjoyment of the adventure aspect of being a Monk.

  Arias had arrived in the desert area of the “Big Nothing” near where Solomon pinged his location. But Arias didn’t see any sign of Solomon. Arias tried to call them on the tablet and he received no answer.

  “Well, that sucks”

  Arias continued to bop along over the surface of the desert in his cruiser looking for any sign of his friend. Until Finally the air pushing out of the jets of the cruiser blew sand off the shape of a body. It was a red cloak with a chiseled man with long red hair.

  “Oh hey! There he is…”

  Arias parked the cruiser on the sandy surface and walked over to Solomon and pushed him face up. And Arias started to shake him to wake Solomon up.

  “Wake up…please?”

  This brought back memories of when Solomon fled to the planet of Masart and bunked with Arias. Arias always swore Solomon could sleep through the end of the world. Arias took a small water horn out of the pocket of his backpack and dripped a couple drops of cold water on Solomon's face.

  “AHHHHH!!” Solomon jumped up with his fist outs ready to fight

  “Whoa there hoss, It’s just me, why are you passed out on the floor of the Big Nothing?”

  Solomon coughed and wiped the sand off of his face

  “All I remember is throwing my tablet last night and this giant white light blinded me….and now you’re here”

  “Nooo….Nooo” Arias annoyingly said

  “They took everything from you didn’t they?”

  “What?” Solomon said realizing everything that he had on him was gone. Backpack, Water, His Revolver and his sand goggles.

  “Those wraiths caught up with you and robbed you…please tell me you still have the manuscript and map I gave to you before you headed out here”

  Solomon shoved his hands in his pockets in his cloak and pants and shirt until he pulled out two pieces of paper

  “Oh thank god, that would have gotten me exiled from the church if you lost that” Arias said in a very nonchalant tone that suggested that he was exaggerating a punishment.

  “Exiled?” Solomon said confused

  “Yeah you know, where they stick your ass on a ship and send you the District “Shit hole” and leave you there to die”

  “Oh…well hopefully we never get exiled…” Solomon said as he came to reality

  “So as long as the wraiths don’t know where you were heading there’s a chance we’ll make it to that temple and get to the relic before them”

  “What is this relic?” Solomon asked

  “Uh…well I actually don’t know if relic is the right terminology for what we’re going to hopefully score…I suppose it’s kindof like….ahh I don’t know, if it’s there it’ll speak for itself…quite literally…probably?” Arias said in his rambling he would get into when he trying to multitask because he was trying to shine a special light on the surface of the sand to see if he could find the tracks of the Wraiths that robbed Solomon.

  Arias grabbed Solomon and brought him to his feet. It was time that they started to head north along the lip of the Canyon to get to the temple before the Wraiths did.

  Arias threw Solomon into the back seat of his cruiser and hopped in and began to slowly move toward the temple ruin that laid on the mouth of the canyon.

  “So uh…where did your cruiser go…?” Arias probing to see if Solomon was robbed of that too

  “Well to avoid detection of the two wraiths I left it on the south side of the canyon because you can’t be stealthy with a loud ass ship whizzing across the sand.” Solomon said annoyed that Arias always assumed the worst out of Solomon.

  “Oh yeah that’s actually pretty smart…” Arias was hoping Solomon wouldn’t try to get him to do that because Arias was hoping for an easy trip to the Temple. Which they ended up getting to the temple within a couple of hours.

  “Well here we are!” Arias said as he began to land the cruiser behind a rock to try and keep it hidden from any other parties.

  There Solomon and Arias looked up at the giant staircase that looked like it’d take all day to climb up to the entrance.

  “Ya ready for this?” Solomon said smugly as he began to run up the stairs heading toward the entrance of the massive temple chiseled with what looked like limestone according to Arias’ research tablet as he was reading while speed walking behind Solomon.

  They quickly made it to the top of the steps due both of their stout physiques they both had to work on, on account of the Monks strict code of self wellness. The passageway at the top of the steps seemed unopened

  “Thank god, we definitely made it before the wraiths”

  Solomon pushed on the giant limestone doors with no budge.

  “Hold on Solomon let me put on my goggles and see if there’s anything we’re missing”

  Arias dug the blue goggles out of his backpack and proceeded to snap them onto his eyes like he was some sort of cartoon character. He began to look along the walls and the doors of the entire entrance to see if there were any old runes or carvings that may give a hint.

  After a long time of him scanning the walls and floor with his goggles Solomon finally said “Well? What is it?”

  “Well…there isn’t shit…let's blow the door I guess?”

  “Now we’re talking!” Solomon exclaimed because he loved blowing things up in the name of adventure.

  Arias dug three discs that looked like little green cakes. He stuck them onto the limestone and once the part was out of the way he detonated the little bombs and the door crumbled instantly.

  “Let's hope it’s all this easy!”

  They began their trek into the Temple, Tomb or Ruin.