The group of Xander, Gwendolyn, Jorge, Drakthar, Kali, Lunette, Kayde, and Fore all meet back up the next day after resting following Drakthar’s victory over Xander.

“Alright, guys who is ready to fight that big gold lizard thing again?” Kayde asks excitedly.

“Uh, you mean dragon?” Xander points out a more appropriate term for it as the group starts to depart Melusarej, on their way to the Northeastern part of the desert.

“Aye, I’m excited,” Jorge agrees, spilling some of his drink as he lifts up the bottle.

“It sucks we couldn’t get a ride there on the airship, now we have to walk the entire way,” Kali mentions, the excitement more than a week of traveling away.

“Sorry, I don’t want them to waste time transporting us everywhere. On the bright side, they will pick us up when we are done,” Gwendolyn reasons, not willing to use up Silent Brotherhood resources on something like this.

“You mean pick you and Xander up,” Kayde points out, suspecting their plans of settling down and going back to the Silent Brotherhood instead of continuing their escapades with the group.

“You can come too... but not to the honeymoon,” Gwendolyn tells him, insinuating he is welcome to join the Silent Brotherhood.

“I’ll have to decline but I’m not giving up on you two continuing to travel with us,” Kayde warns them.

“What are you guys going to do once we defeat this dragon?” Xander asks, wanting to know what the other option is.

“Don’t know, but I’m sure we will think of something,” Kayde notes, planning on roaming around from city to city through the desert as he used to before he met all of them.

“I’m going back to the capital when it’s over,” Jorge tells them to no one's surprise.

“Can we move on to something else? I don’t want to think about us parting ways right now,” Kali asks, getting more and more unsure of where she will fit into all of this once everyone has gone their separate ways.

“Yeah, okay. So, guys, I’ve been thinking… you know how we have parts of this dragon? Like my knife is made of one of its claws, Drakthar’s regular armor is made from its bones, he has a couple of teeth from it still too, and your necklaces are made of the tips of its teeth,” Kayde pulls out his knife and points to the matching golden toothed necklaces around Xander and Gwendolyn’s necks.

“Yes… what are you trying to say?” Xander isn’t quite sure where he is going with this.

“Okay, so what if we hold up these things when we see the dragon? Will they disappear off it?” Kayde asks, thinking of after they came back in time, how they replaced their counterparts in the current timeline once they laid eyes on them.

“What are you talking about?” Lunette asks curiously, intrigued by whatever concept Kayde might be referring to.

He begins to explain, “Oh, so you know how we are from the future? When we…”

“What? You guys are from the future?” Lunette interrupts him, this being the first time she has heard of this.

“I thought we mentioned that before… anyway…” Kayde attempts to continue.

“How is this something you can just gloss over?” Lunette asks incredulously.

Kayde brushes it off, “Don’t worry about it, now my original point was…”

“Are you telling me you all are from the future? I have so many questions,” Lunette interrupts him again, needing it confirmed because it is so unbelievable.

“No, Kali and Fore aren’t, but the rest of us are,” Kayde answers her, getting ready to get back to what he wanted to discuss.

“Yeah, we did some crazy shit,” Jorge agrees, raising his bottle in Lunette’s general direction.

“Did you know about this?” Lunette turns to Kali, thinking maybe she might have been left out of the loop as well.

“Yeah, I think I remember them mentioning it once or twice,” Kali responds, making it seem like it isn’t that big of a deal.

“Okay, so if our past selves disappeared when we saw them, will the parts of the dragon disappear when he sees them?” Kayde is finally able to ask again.

“So you want us to pull out all the stuff we harvested from it and lay it out in front of it and see what happens?” Xander clarifies what Kayde wants.

“Yes, I think it’s worth a shot,” Kayde confirms his plan.

“Okay, we can try it,” Xander agrees with him, not seeing how it could hurt.

As they are trekking across the desert, Xander notices how irritated Drakthar’s expression has been since their fight yesterday.

“You should cheer up. You won today after all?” He tells Drakthar.

Drakthar’s face gets even more annoyed as he responds, “Did I win?”

“Yes, do you not believe me? I know you didn’t get to live through the moment like I did, but you won,” Xander assures him.

“Xander, I know you are not fighting me with everything you have… because we are friends. But you should stop lying to me… I can’t trust what you told me because you were lying when you said I was going to kill you because…” Drakthar pauses almost embarrassed to admit what he is about to say, not that Drakthar truly grasps embarrassment at all.

“I can’t kill you. I may not know a lot of things, but I know that I couldn’t bring myself to do it either… so stop lying,” Drakthar gets it out. Xander’s face gets more serious after Drakthar calls him out.

“So you knew. Sorry, I just didn’t want to… never mind,” Xander tries to explain why he did it.

“You did win though, you just stopped your swing when you were going to end it,” he adds letting Drakthar in on the whole fight.

After hearing this Drakthar walks off to rejoin the bigger group, he doesn’t want to talk to Xander right now. Both Gwendolyn and Kali notice the two of them come back with disgruntled looks.

“Hey what happened?” Kali approaches Drakthar, making it to him before he gets in earshot of the rest of the group.

“Nothing,” Drakthar tries to give her the cold shoulder like usual.

“Certainly didn’t look like nothing... and your face looks even sourer than it has been. You know you can tell me,” Kali tries to get it out of him. Drakthar looks around to make sure no one else is witnessing him complain in this moment.

“I don’t want to be lied to. Xander lied to me about our fight. I never tried to kill him, but he told me I did so that I would feel better about myself. I don’t want someone to lie to spare my feelings, I would rather know the truth no matter how harsh it is,” Drakthar vents to her.

While Drakthar is telling Kali this, she starts to feel guilty, Xander isn’t the only one that has been keeping things from Drakthar. She can’t stop thinking about his fight with Sharn and how he doesn’t know that Sharn let him win.

“Hey… please don’t be mad… I… I did the same thing Xander did. You remember when you killed Sharn?” Kali tentatively asks, afraid this will cause some sort of strain between them.

“Yes,” Drakthar responds, attentively listening to what she has to say.

“Well, I knew that he didn’t try his hardest in that fight. He wanted to die so you could take his place, you didn’t win because you were stronger. I’m sorry, I understand if you hate me right now for keeping that from you,” Kali apologizes profusely, thinking the worst.

She is surprised when she feels his arms around her. Kali looks up and sees Drakthar’s stubborn face looking off into the distance as he is holding her.

“What? Where did this come from?” She asks him as she slowly starts to blush.

“You told me the truth. I appreciate it. I knew something was off about that fight. I suspected as much for a while now but it is good to know that it’s true. Thank you,” Drakthar tells her.

“I have no idea what is going on with these lads anymore. Is it always like this?” Jorge asks Kayde as he watches Kali and Drakthar.

“Pretty much, I barely know what those four are doing. I just like to poke fun at them every once and a while to keep things interesting,” Kayde explains as Lunette nods along with him.

“For example watch this,” Kayde tells Jorge as the others rejoin the main group.

“Hey Drakthar, what is the name of your new horse?” Kayde asks curiously.

“Doesn’t have one,” Drakthar responds calmly.

Kayde turns towards the horse and asks, “You want to name yourself or what?”

The horse is confused, neighing in response, “What? What is name?”

“He doesn’t want to name himself,” Kayde turns back to Drakthar.

“So… you going to name him? Cause if you don’t I will,” Kayde declares, already thinking up potential names for the horse.

“Russ,” Drakthar responds, surprising Kayde that he would care enough to name it himself.

Kayde looks back at the horse, “A name is something you are called that identifies you. Your name is Russ. It’s not the best name if you ask me, but it is what it is”.

“What is identifies?” The horse asks, still confused by what this metal man is saying to him.

Kayde sighs and whispers down to Fore, “This guy isn’t that bright”.

“That’s okay, you have me and I’m the brightest,” Fore tells him, his tongue hanging out of his mouth a little.

“That you are,” Kayde agrees, rubbing the top of this head a little before continuing on.

A week of uneventful travel ensues until they spot the oddly shaped blue fire, that same place where Jorge unlocked the seal hidden in the sand nearby and released the legendary beast.

“Hey, we found you in the temple thing below this after we killed the dragon last time. Do you know what is up with this weird fire?” Kayde thinks to ask Gwendolyn.

“I have no clue, I’ve never seen this before. We entered through a different direction,” She explains, not having a clue what the fire could mean.

“You lads ready? I’m gonna break the seal,” Jorge’s hand ignites, readying to thrust it into the imprint below to release the dragon and ruins below. Kayde and Drakthar start to pull the teeth and claws they still have from the dragon from their bags of holding and lay them out onto the sand, in case it could cause parts if not all of the dragon to disappear.

Jorge punches the seal, immediately causing the ground around them to shake, sands shifting all around them. It is then that it emerges, the giant sand dragon, grains falling all around its body, revealing its glimmering golden skin as it roars at its foolish prey.

Kayde looks closely at its impressive maw as it roars, noting all of its teeth remain despite it seeing the same parts from a different reality.

“Well that didn’t work,” he notes as he draws his rifle.

“Remember the plan, shoot for the eyes first!” Xander calls out to Kayde, Lunette, and Gwendolyn as he, Drakthar, and Kali rush head-on towards the monstrosity.

“Hey, let’s make this interesting,” Kayde starts to propose something to Gwendolyn and Lunette while at the same time taking his first shot.

They both look at Kayde when they hear a cry from the dragon before them. This draws their eyes to the dragon where they see its left eye bleeding from Kayde’s single bullet.

“I’ll let you two team up, try and hit the other eye before I do,” he smirks as he starts to aim his second shot.

The beast focuses with its one good eye on the three approaching it, just as it is ready to use its giant claw to level all three of them in one slash, it feels odd spots off heat all over it. Jorge’s fireballs are proving to be a nuisance the creature can’t ignore, giving an opening for Drakthar, Kali, and Xander to make it in close.

Drakthar makes the first attack, lifting his axe up into the golden underbelly of the dragon. Its skin is pierced in one slash, a stark contrast to the last time where its hide proved nearly impossible to break.

Kali follows up by attacking the same place, opening the wound even more. The pain from the new gash near its stomach causes the dragon to narrow its focus on the three below it ignoring the pesky former priest of Gwyn that has been hurling fireballs at it.

The dragon rears back its head, gathering acid that resides within its stomach into its mouth. It sticks out its long neck, bringing its head so it is right in front of the three ants that have somehow put it in such a dire position.

Drakthar and Xander both understand what is coming, having been face to face with this beast before. Drakthar, who is wearing his power armor, merely turns so the acid only finds its way onto the armor and not any of his exposed skin.

Xander quickly jumps to the side, trying to get around the beast so he is out of the splash zone. Kali realizes what is going on too late; she tries to dodge like Xander but doesn’t make it in time. The acid hits her, causing her to feel more than anything a sharp stinging in her eyes.

Xander watches as she struggles to open them as she cries, “I can’t see!” The monster with its one good eye notices the two of them standing still. It brings its left claw towards them, trying to squash the dangerous insects before they can do it more harm.

Drakthar notices the beast attempting to attack his friends; he puts himself between the claw and the others. The dragon becomes confused as its giant arm is completely stopped. It looks down with its one giant functioning eye and sees that Drakthar is what stopped it, the determined man straining to keep the giant claw stuck in place.

“Come on, we need to move,” Xander tells Kali, still not fully aware of what is going on with her. It is then that Kali lowers her hands from her eyes and Xander sees them... or what is left of them. He sees a white liquid with hints of red spilling down her face, the acid having melted the front of her eyes, leaving only oddly shaped irritated pink masses where they should be.

Xander knows this is not something that is going to heal with time. He turns back time to just before the dragon spits acid at the three of them. This time he immediately goes over to Kali and warps the two of them out of the way.

“What was that for?” Kali asks, believing she would have been fine.

“I had to do it, you would have lost your eyesight,” Xander quickly explains to her as he tries to focus back on the movements of the dragon.

Towards the back Kayde, Lunette, and Gwendolyn continue to fire at the beast trying to hit its one good eye.

“What’s the matter Kayde? Can’t hit the second eye?” Lunette taunts him after he was so confident before.

“Look, it’s moving around all weird now. It was easier before okay,” Kayde starts to make excuses as to why he hasn’t hit the second eye. As the two of them banter back and forth as they miss, Gwendolyn focuses, breathing in as she pulls back the arrow loaded in her bow.

She studies the motions of the dragon, reading its movements, trying to calculate the position where its eye will end up if it continues on its current course. She waits, tracking it more and more until she finally sees an opportunity.

The dragon rears its head back again, signaling to Gwendolyn it is going to spit out acid right near her friends like before. Knowing where its head will end up, she releases the arrow and before the dragon can let out the acid it was storing up, its eyesight is lost, an arrow now imbedded in its right eye.

The beast starts to thrash around, screeching in pain and confusion as it tries to lash out at the ones that caused it to feel this agony. In its blind rage, it feels more slashes tear apart its underbelly, Drakthar, Kali, and Xander having taken advantage of its loss of sight.

The beast begins to panic; it now can sense the danger this unexpected threat poses. It escapes the only way it knows how, burrowing beneath the sand, causing the grains around it to kick up and stir as it disappears below.

“Everyone, get near me!” Xander calls out, having seen the same tactic before, knowing the dragon will resurface below one of them. He readies himself, prepared to switch the entire group in case the dragon is about to attack from below.

They feel a rumbling below them, Xander knows this is it, but before he can switch them with anything they begin falling. He looks down and the sand beneath them is falling away, creating what looks like a sinkhole before opening up into what seems to be a vast nothingness.

Xander looks up and tries to find something above ground to switch all of them with, but it is too late, they are too far down already, falling towards their imminent deaths. It is then that Xander spots the dragon falling with them, blood flowing from its stomach as it descends into this dark pit.

Xander stares intently at the dragon trying to find something that he can swap with so that they end up on the dragon’s back so it will serve to break their fall. There is nothing except the beast itself and the sands that are falling with them. He eyes a falling grain near the dragon and takes this chance.

The entire group feels themselves now on the dragon, just as it collides harshly with the ground below. The dragon breaks their fall, but Xander swapping them already stopped their momentum so it was an unnecessary action.

“Is everyone okay?” Kayde calls out once they settle on the ground. The others respond in the affirmative with both Fore and Russ barking and neighing respectively.

“What the hell happened?” Jorge asks, lighting a small fire in his hand so he can see his surroundings.

All they can see from the small light is the sand and gore around them and the dragon’s corpse.

“We must have been standing on a hole where the dragon burrowed before. It must have loosened the sand and caused us to fall down here along with it,” Lunette speculates as to how they ended up wherever they are.

Kali looks up trying to see how far down they are. She expects to see some sort of light above, but it is nothing except darkness.

“I can’t see any light,” she notifies the others.

“Let’s just all calm down,” Kayde notes as he lights up a bunch of torches.

“Why don’t we see what we can take from the body of the dragon like last time and then we can start to assess our situation,” he suggests handing torches to some of them.