Lukas turned left, his eyes wide.

All he could see was the desert, sand in all directions, and dunes rolling into the distance.

He turned right. It was the same thing.

He walked several paces forward, shielding his eyes against the early morning light, and scanned the full stretch of the horizon from one edge to the other.

There was nothing. He couldn’t see the familiar tall walls of the ringed city, or the outline of the tower rising above the city’s outer ring.

He turned completely around and checked behind him.

Still nothing.

"Lukas."

He spun. Melody was a few feet away from their tent, her arms crossed as she watched him with a curious expression. She’d been on watch.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"The city," he said. "It’s gone."

She stood up slowly. "What do you mean gone?"

"I mean I can’t see it. It was right there last night." He pointed vaguely at the horizon. "It’s not there anymore."

Melody looked where he was pointing, then looked at him.

He was already moving to Karrakas’s tent.

He crouched at the entrance and knocked his knuckles against the material. "Karrakas."

There was a pause.

"Karrakas. Wake up. There’s a problem."

He heard movement from inside, then the flap opened and Karrakas appeared, shielding his eyes from the sun as it adjusted to the light.

"What’s the problem?"

"The ringed city is gone. I can’t see it anymore."

Karrakas stared at him.

Then he was out of the tent, compass already in his hand, moving past Lukas without another word. He checked the needle, looked at the sky to cross-reference, turned in a slow circle, and checked the needle again.

He stopped, exhaling slowly. Then he burst into laughter.

It started as a snort before growing louder, his shoulders shaking with it as he lowered the compass and turned to face them.

"It’s still there," he said, pointing slightly left of where Lukas had been looking. "A dune shifted overnight. The breeze built it up high enough to block the line of sight."

He pointed again. "It’s right there."

Lukas walked to the dune, climbed the face of it, and looked over the crest.

The ringed city sat in the distance, exactly where it had always been, its walls and tower rising high into the sky.

He laughed despite himself. "Thank you. I almost thought we’d gotten transported somewhere else."

"Did you think the city walked away?" Karrakas called up, grinning.

Melody covered her mouth, already laughing.

Lukas climbed back down, chuckling, and ducked back into his tent.

Akira was already sitting up on her mat, blinking at him. "What happened?" She yawned.

He explained.

Her expression moved through confusion, then understanding, then she broke into a full laugh, falling sideways onto the mat.

"It’s not funny," he said.

"It absolutely is," she said, still laughing, and climbed past him out of the tent.

A few seconds later, the sound of three people laughing drifted through the tent material.

Lukas sat on his mat and listened to it. Then he smiled and began packing his things.

They broke camp quickly, the process faster now than it had been on the first morning. Everyone knew their role.

Tents came down, mats were folded, and equipment disappeared into spatial rings in the right order. Within five minutes, the flat stretch of desert where they’d slept looked exactly like every other flat stretch of desert around it.

Karrakas checked his compass one more time, confirmed the bearing, and they set off towards the dune.

The ringed city was visible the moment they crested it, its walls and tower exactly where they’d always been.

Nobody said anything about the earlier confusion, though the corner of Melody’s mouth kept quirking up into a smile every time she glanced at Lukas.

He pretended not to notice.

The first beasts found them within the hour.

Two E-rank Razor Chilopodas erupted from the sand ahead, and before Karrakas had finished reaching for his bow, Melody and Akira were already moving forward.

"That’s mine," Akira said, moving to the right.

"Alright," Melody confirmed, already moving left.

The fight lasted under thirty seconds.

Akira drove [Temptation] through her Chilopoda’s underbelly before it had fully oriented towards her, while Melody disappeared with her bracer, reappeared behind her target, and put her sword through the back of its head in a single stab.

They stored the corpses and turned back.

Akira turned to Melody with a smug expression on her face. "You know I’m ahead of you in number of kills now, right?

Melody’s eyes narrowed. "You were at the front for most of the quest, so that doesn’t count."

"Of course not. Even if I was just doing my job, the kills still count."

"But it doesn’t reflect our actual ability."

"Then it’s a good thing we’re not ranking our ability," Akira said pleasantly. "We’re ranking our kills. And I have more."

"For now," Melody said.

"For now," Akira agreed, in a tone that suggested she had no intention of letting that change.

Lukas looked at Karrakas, who also turned to look at him.

They said nothing, but both of them were clearly working to keep their expressions blank.

It didn’t fully work.

The argument continued at intervals as they walked, surfacing every time they encountered another beast and one of them got to the kill before the other.

A group of three Chilopodas gave Melody two kills and Akira one, which Melody announced loudly.

A pair of scorpions that came up from the sand shortly after gave Akira both, which she announced even more loudly. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Before long, Lukas stopped counting.

The ringed city grew steadily larger ahead of them through the morning, the walls becoming taller and the gate becoming visible.

Soon, they could make out the guards posted at the entrance. It didn’t take too long after that for them to walk through the gate.

Karrakas stopped just inside the entrance and looked at them. "Do you know the way back to the inn from here?"

"Yes," Lukas said.

"Good." He tucked his compass into his jacket. "I have something to take care of. I’ll meet you back there later."

They said their goodbyes, and Karrakas turned and disappeared into the street, his dark suit moving through the foot traffic until he was gone.

Lukas looked at his wives, then down at his feet.

The pain had been manageable all morning, but manageable was not the same as fine, and he knew the difference.

"First thing," he said. "We find a Medic."