Treasure Hunt|Naurorod

[Kender Bard]

Fern blazes the trail through the desert for Sierra to follow. At the moment, her concentration is absorbed in the work since it can be rather easy to get lost after a while of endless sand in all directions. She's trusting that he'll keep a watch out for danger.

...It might be a mirage, but it appears that one of the sand dunes is starting to move their way though.

[aivea]

Sierra follows, mostly watching Fern to make sure they don't get seperated, but also looking over at a rather odd sand dune. Part of his brain is telling him the dune is approaching and part is wondering if he is losing his mind. To settle the internal argument, the swordsman decides to ask Fern.

"Fern? Did that dune just move?"

[Kender Bard]

Fern pauses and holds a hand over her eyes to shield from the glare of the sun and peers into the distance. For long moments, she sees nothing unusual.

"It was probably a mirage," Fern says to Sierra with a shrug. "It happens. If you start to feel light headed we'll take a break for food and water." As soon as she turns her back to resume the march, though, the 'dune' moves again.

[aivea]

Sierra looks embarrassed for a moment, then nods.

"I bet a mirage would be easier to deal with a real moving dune... Either way, I'll be more careful."

He continues to follow Fern, though still glancing around once in a while to make sure nothing's coming.

[Kender Bard]

After a couple more hours of walking, Fern sighs and suddenly plops down right on the sand, wiping the sweat from her face with the corner of her shirt. "Okay, it's break down." Licking her dry lips, she reached into her pack and pulled out two skins of water, and handed one to Sierra. "Drink up, don't want you to suddenly hallucinate a water fountain," she teased.

[aivea]

Sierra sits next to Fern and thanks her for the water. Starting to see mirages again was not a welcome idea, especially when he's the one that's supposed to keep an eye out for trouble. Once he opens the waterskin, the swordsman notices that he's a lot more thirsty than he thought. Before reminding himself to slow down, Sierra gulps down a few mouthfulls.

[Kender Bard]

"Careful," Fern laughs, but immediately freezes and goes silent mid giggle. She thought she saw a very, very close dune move. In barely a whisper, she says, "Sierra... I don't think you were seeing things..."

[aivea]

Sierra turns to see that it did look like one of the dunes had moved. Closing the canteen, he finds he doesn't need to remind himself to protect Fern.

"I was hoping I was seeing things," he says equally quietly.

[Kender Bard]

Fern gulps and mutters meekly, "So was I."

And then the dune stops moving - instead, it explodes into a spray of sand and small pebbles. Fern throws up an arm to shield her eyes, and trembles as a creature roars. She peeks over her arm enough to catch the sun glittering off sand-tan scales, ebony black sharp talons, and eyes that drew you...

She shut her eyes swiftly and gasped, "Basilisk!"

[aivea]

Sierra closes his eyes and gulps slightly. He'd turned away from the shower of pebbles enough that most hit his side, but he'd also gotten a peak at part of it.

"That and firecats are the two creatures I thought only existed in Lior's mind... What do you want to do? It's going to be a pain to fight it, but I think it would catch up if we ran."

[Kender Bard]

As the basilisk approached closer, Fern jumped up and touches her sign. How she was going to fight blind, she was unsure - most of her training relied heavily on her sight. "We'll have to fight. Ready?" After she asked, she launched into a whispered chant so she could create a wall of fire between it and them.

[aivea]

"Yeah, I'm ready."Sierra gets out his broadsword and touches his own sign with his other hand, "Is it any safer to look at its reflection? If so, we might not have to fight as blind after all."

Even if the glare from the sun would be pretty bad, the blade of his weapon was still well-kept enough that it was possible to see a faint reflection in it.

[Kender Bard]

Fern wracked her memories of stories she'd been told as a child and hazarded, "I think so. But just to play it safe, don't look it in the eyes even in the reflection!" Focuses, she raised her firewall and was rewarded with the startled grunt as the basilisk nearly ran into it - but it wasn't too big and she knew it could go around and still get them.

[aivea]

Sierra opens his eyes and uses the reflection of the basilisk created in the metal of his sword to aim fireballs at the creatures head. He hopes that it could be blinded by being repeatedly hit around the eyes with fire.

"This better work!"

[Kender Bard]

The basilisk works to protect its eyes from the assault, ducking its head and letting the rest of its body take the brunt of the blows as it started to turn around.

Catching on to this strategy, Fern searched frantically amongst her things for an actual weapon. She wouldn't be able to shoot backwards, but maybe she could close her eyes and get in a lucky stab. "I don't suppose you have any daggers with you, do you?" While doing that, she shifted her focus back to her firewall and used Sierra's targetting as a measure for where she should have the wall suddenly 'reach out' and attack the basilisk.