Memoirs of a RAFian

[redtailedsaffa]

Man, you really need to get your 3DS fixed if I have to catch up on all these chapters.

Did not expect that ending for Nancy, tbh. Also, that last chapter felt very like the Lion King.

[Cloak]

Good, as that was what the first part of the last chapter was based off of.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Thirsty Crystal

A poor girl named Liliana* was in a desert with her father, wearing rather generic and stereotypical desert clothing. Her family were driven to poverty and isolation, but it wasn't anything they did, but simply because how they looked. They were called many pejorative things and other things that you simply don't hear in polite conversation. Most, if not all, were outright lies or bigoted misconceptions to marginalize and dehumanize her, her father, her mother, and her little brother.

Just because their beliefs and traditions were not what these people considered mainstream did not mean that she was inherently evil, or a terrorist, which seemed to be their favorite slanderous term. They intended it to hurt, and it did. Fearing for his life and that of his wife and children, her father had them move away to this desolate little spot of . . .

They did not have much money, and a lot of the shopkeeps nearby weren't very hospitable to them, having assumed the reason for the move was not out of fear for safety, but because they were hiding something that they did not want to be found out, generally assumed (quite wrongly, of course) to be terrorist activities.

The whole thing was enough to make her cry with utter frustration. If these people, some of which she though she knew well and got along with, thought they would condone such evil, horrid act . . . then they didn't know them at all. And then the people who didn't, the people who wanted to believe the worst of them because just they simply looked different, just because their beliefs were different? There were no words for them -- especially as many, if not most of them were hypocrites, as they were also closeted Knights, known terrorists.

The whole thing wasn't fair. They had done nothing wrong. Their greatest crime was not saying, "good morning", to one of their neighbors on a brisk, rainy day. They weren't bad people, yet there were those ill-informed bigots flaunting their arrogant ignorance proudly, as if it were patriotic.

They were good people!! Why should they have to live on the fringes, just because some awful people who just want to persecute the imagined demons in the "other" are incapable of learning how to coexist? It wasn't . . . it . . . it was . . . it just wasn't fair . . .

So, Liliana, taking some initiative, was looking for possible things that they could sell. She wasn't stealing though, she wouldn't do that. She wouldn't sacrifice her dignity to be reduced to simple thievery. It would proving those bigoted monsters right. No, she'd much rather deny them that satisfaction. She would find something useful, in these arid wilds.

She had found a cave open that she thought might be promising. She hesitated for a moment, when she considered how upset and angry her father may get with her, especially since she was out here alone, in the wilds, where danger abounds. There could be dangers like scorpions and snakes and whatnot in the small cave opening. Did the potential reward outweigh the risks?

In all honesty, no, it didn't. But Liliana was twelve, and a dangerously-impetuous one at that. She entered the low-ceilinged cave, and made her way to the end, all the while thinking that she was being incredibly stupid, but desperation can make stupid things seem very viable. When she reached the end, when she was sure that she'd disturb a rattlesnake, she found an odd, dusty, dirty crystal.

She grabbed it, and discover that it felt heavy in her hand. She grasped it easily and began to make her way out of the cave . . . to her worried and angry father, who was standing right outside the cave's mouth.


* Loosely based on her. Though her personality is gonna be different.

[Cloak]

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
A Dry, Dry, Dry World

"Lili, why did you go down there?" her father demanded. His eyes raked over her, making sure that there were no bites or injuries. When he was satisfied that she wasn't harmed, he continued, "Do you have any idea what could have been down there? You could have been bitten by a rattlesnake, stung by a scorpion, or something even worse!!"

She knew that he only spoke harshly for fear of her safety. She knew that he cared deeply for his daughter, and that she had not only frightened and worried him with her disappearance. She felt a little aggrieved about her actions now, remorse for causing her father more duress than she should have.

"I'm sorry, Dad," she said, informally.

"What do you have there, Liliana?"  he said, having calmed down.

"A crystal of some kind," she replied, looking it in her hand. "I thought we could sell it to get some money for food or some other necessity."

"Perhaps," her father said, but he didn't all that sincerely convinced.

"It could, Dad!" Liliana insisted earnestly. "It just needs to be cleaned up a bit, that's all!"

She dashed toward a nearby river, flowing in direct contradiction of the arid surroundings, almost like a lonely, open road -- desolate, deserted, and alone. It wound and curved in a very artistic way -- Liliana loved it.

She bent down and submerged the crystal in the water, with every intention on cleaning it. But she jumped up and away from the water, as it turned to salt. Then entire river was swiftly turning to hard salt. Completely undrinkable and unusable.

Liliana choked back a sob. Her favorite river . . . reduced to a motionless river of table salt. What did she do?! she berated herself viciously, What did she DO?! Her favorite spot in this desolate land, and she turned it to salt!! Why didn't she just leave well enough alone?!

But then she realized that she had more pressing concerns, as a fist composed completely out of salt, broke through the surface of the salt-ified river, as a raspy, gravelly voiced called out, "I thirst!!"

[Cloak]

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Impossible!

"Young one."

Aniyu's voice was impatient with a touch of scolding in it. Cloak didn't answer. He didn't ask for Aniyu to invwde his dreams.

"Young one, you beseeched me here, and now you run from me?"

Cloak turned his back to her obstinately. As he did that, he was reduced from being an adult Realm Walker to being a cub, proving just how childish he was being.

"Young one . . . Cloak, you can't keep running from this," she intoned, her scolding, impatient tone giving way to a compassionate, knowing one. "You can't keep burying it. It won't go away like that. It'll continue to resurface again and again. It'll keep causing you pain, like an incurable disease that goes into remission from time to time."

Cloak still did not turn around. He still did not look at Aniyu.

"Cloak, dear," she said, persistently coaxing him, "the only way for you to get past this -- truly get passed this -- is to confront it. Acknowledge it. Accept it. Learn from it."

Cloak remained silent.

"It's the only way to truly stop the pain, and the only way to truly recover," Aniyu said.

At last Cloak spoke, but he remained in his cub form, his eyes shut tightly, unwanted tears streaming down his face "It's impossible."

***

"Impossible!" Aquilai was heard to complain.

"Yes, yes, 'impossible' is just a usual Saturday morning for us," GH quipped.

"The world's waterways are turning to . . . to . . . to salt!"

"So, Situation 760 B, then?" GH said, flippantly.

"Get serious here, Logan," Saffa said.

"Don't call me that," GH said.

"GH, consider the potential ramifications of such a thing," Goom said. "This whole planet depends on water. It powers our weather patterns. It facilitates one major method of travel. Not to mention that, Terran life at least, requires it to live."

"How'd this happen in the first place?" Yarin asked.

"Why? Gonna make another microwave based on this?" Saffa said, unable to help herself.

"It was not a microwave, it was a FOOD YIELD INCREASER!" Yarin sniffed, though his irritation leaked through his aloof tone. "In any case, my point still stands."

"We can worry about the 'how it began' thing later," Phoenix said. "Now we should worry about stemming it from expanding to all water on Earth."

A beat of silence.

"Any idea on how we can accomplish that?" Gaz asked.

[guitarhero01234]

Calling me by my real name is almost as bad as calling me capital gh.

[Cloak]

Since I feel had by the lack of SuMo information, here's a new chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
He Rises! He Thirsts!

From the left fist that emerged from the salt river came a wrist, a lower arm, and the upper arm. Then a shoulder emerged. Then the head came out of the salt river, a horrible skull-like head with his salt skin stretched taut across his bald head, and sunken eyes and pointed teeth. With his head free, he extricated his other arm and managed to pull the rest of himself free of the salt. He was bare-chested, with a kilt-sort of clothing of ancient Egyptian design.

Liliana and her family were considerably and understandably dumbfounded. They were motionless, rooted to the spot, with incredulity and shock. Who could have guessed that the crystal she found would have turned the water into salt and become the horrid man composed completely of salt.

"I thirst!!" he screamed, in that horrible rapsy, gravelly voice, as if he had known moisture for a very long time. "I thirst!!"

Then this salt man took notice of the family of pariahs. He shuffled towards them.

Liliana thought she knew terror. She thought she lived through the worst that this world could offer -- and what she survived through was not by any means good -- but nothing like this. The salt man was beyond her worst dreams, and she did not know why. Or why she felt such dread when she saw his outstretched right hand.

"The Eterno*?" she heard her father mutter fearfully. "It's . . . impossible. It was just a myth . . ."

The Eterno's hand touched her father, and at the point of contact her father was turned into a salt statue.

"Not enough," the Eterno moan in that awful voice of its. "I still thirst!!"

Her brother and mother was next. Liliana watched in horror. Abject, unadulterated horror. She was nearly frozen in terror, and would have been the nedt victim, if her flight-or-fight instinct kicked in hard -- and she knew that she could not fight this creature.

So she ran.

She ran and ran and ran. But the images would not escape her mind's eye. It was seared into her subconscious. Her eyes filled with tears as she realized that she was now orphaned, that she lost the three people in this world who meant the absolute most to her. Now she had no one.

She was alone. She had no one. Not anymore.

"I thirst!!" the salt man screamed hoarsely.

How she hated herself for releasing that monster from the crystal. There had to be a way to rectify this. It was her fault. It was her responsibility to set it right. But how?

"I thirst!!"

"The tree." she muttered suddenly. The realization hit her so that she stopped running as her eyes widened with dawning idea. The tree. That had to be it. It had be the thing to stop this monster. "The tree . . . but where --"

"I thirst!!" the Eterno announced suddenly, right behind Liliana. How'd he manage to close the gap so quickly? . . . Because she stood still too long. She allowed him to catch up. He placed his right hand on her back and she felt herself become encrusted in salt.

Her last thoughts were very self-deprecating, as she continued to blame herself for this egregious mistake . . .


*

[Cloak]

New book ideas!

• Book CMLIII: "Dance, Dance, Revolution" -- Cloak gets on the bad side of a dames blanches.
• Book CMLIV: "What the Devil?!" -- The RAFians deal with a pack of Jersey devils.
• Book CMLV: "Van-Pyres" -- The RAFians must deal with fuel-eating Terrorcons.
• Book CMLVI: "Cyber-Forming" -- A fraction of aliens wish to cyber-form Earth. The RAFians cannot allow this.
• Book CMLVII: "Talented Thieves" -- Two individuals are capable of stealing the talents (not superpowers) of others in very different manners.
• Book CMLVIII: "Terrorborgs" -- A hybrid of Terrorcons and the Borg arises.
• Book CMLIX: "Galactic Epidemic" -- The Terrorborgs become a plague upon the galaxy.
• Book CMLX: "Undone" -- The plague of Terrcons ends with the apparent end of three RAFians.
• Book CMLXI: "Intuitive Augmentation" -- A girl is able to permanently copy the talents (not powers) of others with but a touch.

All titles are subject to change. Don't think I rehashed anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Village Lost

"I still thirst!!" said the salt man Eterno, as he lurched towards a nomadic village. He felt an incredible thirst, as he continually vocalized, but, rather like Tantalus, was unable to secure any sort of relief for it.

There would be no satisfying it, save for one thing.

The Eterno wasn't always like this however, as the little part of him that didn't focus on his intense, all-consuming thirst contemplated. And remembered . . .

Centuries ago, he was perfectly human, though he long forgotten the name he used then. He was once a warrior king, whose thirst for power would not, could not be quenched. So he sought the Methuselah Tree, the tree that was said to make all the water on earth.

He crossed the threshold of the nomadic village. The thirst ached in him. He turned a quarter of the village into salt statues, proclaiming and whining about his thirst. He still remembered his past . . .

He failed to get to the Methuselah Tree, of course. And he was instead entombed in salt by the tree's protectors, the centiscarabs, who caused an earthquake. As time passed, he became pure salt.

Back in the present, he had turned seventy-five percent of the village into salt statues. Yet, his thirst had not abated. This infernal thirst!! The Eterno's previous lust for power had become a literal thirst, driving him to search for water to drink, even from the bodies of others, but unable to as his salty skin absorbs it. His thirst . . . his everlasting thirst . . . it was a fate worst than death!!

The village was now all statues of salt. And yet his thirst was no satisfied. He didn't care that his existence was causing the oceans of the world into salt, it made no never mind to him. All he cared about quenching and satisfying his thirst. That was his only concern, and everything else was superfluous and extraneous.

He was so thirsty . . .

***

"Impossible, is it?" Aniyu asked, her gentle tone unchanged. "How do you know it an impossibility if you have never tried?"

"It's impossible," Cloak said, still in cub form, still with a child's voice. He was still being childish.

"Again, if you have never tried," Aniyu said, with impossible patience, "then how do you know it's an impossibility?"

"It is," Cloak said, stubbornly.

"Even the deepest wounds can heal," Aniyu said. "But you have to allow it to come to pass."

Cloak said nothing.

"Cloak," Aniyu said, a bite of concern in her voice now, "the more you resist this, the more you hold on to this grudge -- recovery, true recovery, cannot begin."

Cloak said nothing, and would not look at Aniyu.

"Cloak --"

He woke up.

[Cloak]

Coupla more ideas.

• Book CMLXII: "Two That Don't Go Together" -- The RAFians deal with a rampaging and powerful vaewolf.
• Book CMLXIII: "The Rakshasa" -- Saffa deals with a savage rakshasa.
• Book CMLXIV: "Saffa's . . . Getting Married?!" -- A rogue gandhava tries to force Saffa into marriage.

Titles may change. Don't think I repeated anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Deciding the Course of Action

"What's going on?" Cloak asked groggily.

"Just world-wide armaggedon, Sleeping Beauty!" Aquilai said, testily.

"There's no need for snark," Cloak said, calmly.

"No? While you were away for your cat nap, all the waters of the world are turning into salt!" Aquilai spat, still quite moody. Aquilai had expected Cloak to say, "Impossible" or some derivative of that, but the Elements Master did not. He didn't look too impressed.

"We've seen stranger things," Cloak said, rather placidly.

"If we don't do something, the world will be waterless," Goom intoned, "the plants would wither and die, the herbivores would be next, then the carnivores will expire last. Earth will become barren and lifeless."

"There's always a solution," Cloak said.

"And a ticking clock," GH added.

"And here?" Aquilai asked harshly. Cloak looked at him with dull realization of why he was so testy. He was a Time Lord, yes, but he was a waterbender, as well. A waterbender, but not a bloodbender. If the waters of the world becomes salt, he would basically and essentially lose his bending. "I still cannot believe how . . . how . . . how cavalier you're all being about this!!"

"Uh, guys?" Yarin said, his six eyes blinking with alarming rapidity. "You're not going to believe this."

Yarin showed them a rather grainy image of the salt statues of the village. Cloak couldn't help but think that this looked familiar to him, somehow. As if it happened in another Realm that he bore witness to? That was a possibility . . .

But was there a solution that they found? If they did, if this indeed happened in another Realm he had visited, he couldn't remember it. And there was something else . . . something that he felt that he should remember. Something quite important.

Hopefully, he was mistaken about this, and he was just being paranoid.

***

The thirst . . .

It was an all-consuming obsession. He was just so very thirsty . . . so . . . very . . . THIRSTY. . . .

Every time he tried to satiate it, every time he tried to slake it, every single time he tried to quench this horrid thirst, it failed. This abominable thirst was his curse. His curse . .. his everlasting thirst . . . would he ever be freed from it? Would he be condemned to suffer like this forever?

But for every curse . . . for every curse . . . there had to be a cure, r-right? So, logic . . . logic followed that there should have . . . have been a cure for . . . for . . . for his condition. A cure . . . relief . . . blessed relief. Freedom from this thirst. . . .

The tree . . .

He stopped in his footsteps. The tree . . . the Methuselah Tree . . .

The sap from the tree. That would be the only salvation he could hope for. The Methuselah Sap, it would the only thing to quench this thirst. It could be his only hope . . .

But the question remained. How. How would he get to the tree, and how would he even find the damn thing to betin with.

[Cloak]

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
RAFian Response

"Is this a result of the salt transmogrification of the world's water supply?" Yarin asked openly, with an almost academic curiosity. "Were these statues even once people?"

"The looks of terror on their faces . . . even with the grainy resolution of this video, you can easily make them out," Saffa said, her tone aghast. "I don't that kind of terror is so easily replicated."

"There are douchebags who would do this kind of thing, Saffa," GH said, with a rather sour but dour sort of tone, "to carved terrified statues out of sand. They would think that it's funny."

And before the obnoxious RAFian could speak, he was swiftly silenced by the others present.

"In any case, that does not answer the question how they came to be there," Phoenix said. "They could have been transformed people."

"Transformed by what, though?" Cloak said, mostly to himself. Then he addressed the others, and said, "And so I think we need to assess the situation on-site."

"Wait? What?" Abby said.

"We need to send an investigative team to assess the damages and see what we can do." Cloak said.

"Wouldn't that that be overstepping our jurisdiction?" Gaz asked.

"The world's water supply is turning into salt," Saffa reminded dully, "I think it's fair to say that it's in our jurisdiction."

"I'm going," Cloak said.

"Not without me, you aren't," Goom said. "You'll need my diagnosis intruments and expertise."

"I'm in," Faerie and Demos said at once, causing the former to eye the latter suspiciously and the latter to smirk innocently nonchalant.

"Count me in," Dino said. "I dunno what I can contribute, but I've sat out on too many missions now."

"I'm in, too." Parker said. "Tyr and I can help Goom with the analysis process."

"I'm out," Gaz said, "though I really want to be in on this one. That much direct sunlight? Even for a daywalking vamp like me, it'd make me uncomfortable."

"Understood, and noted," Cloak said. Then he turned to the team, "Get your necessary equipment, Goom. It seems we have another ticking clock upon us."

[Cloak]

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Analysis and Ambushed

Goom and Parker were already analyzing the statues that were Liliana's family, mistaking them for the villager's that were suffering from the same fate.

"Wait a minute," Parker said, surprised.

"Interesting," Goom said, with almost professional acumen, "this salination process is solely exoskeletal with the sufferers induced into some sort of suspended animated state. But they're still . . . alive. I haven't seen anything like this before."

Cloak hesitated for a moment, before saying, "I have."

The briefest of silences met these words.

"I think we would all like to hear that account, Cloaky," Dino said, looming over them all.

"It was in a different Realm," Cloak prefaced, "but something there happened similar to this. Only it wasn't by the water turned to solid salt. It was by --"

"I THIRST!!!" came a strangled, hoarse roar of frustration and desperation.

"Eterno," Cloak said quickly, gazing immediately at this new threat.

"Eterno, what?" Faerie said, confused. Then she saw the Eterno. "What is that thing?"

"I THIRST!!"

"Some sort of salt man," Goom remarked astutely.

"Thanks for that incredible assessment, Goom," Faerie said, slightly annoyed.

"Whatever you do," Cloak said, voice hushed but very stern, "do not let him touch you with his right hand."

"What about his left?" Demos asked, smiling like a madman, allowing his inner malevolent demonic nature to surface. Then he asserted control over it, and became saner.

"Never mind that! Keep your eyes on his right!!" Cloak said quickly as the salt man approached their group faster than Cloak was expecting. He was afraid that there might have been such a creature behind the salt statuary here. He had been reckless. "Make sure he doesn't touch you! Or you'll -- probably -- end up like them!!"

He jabbed his finger over his shoulder toward the salt statuary family, and the point was driven home. But it was at this moment that a realization hit him.

"Dino! Get in your compacted form! Now! Don't arg--" Cloak snapped.

But it was too late. The Eterno was there already and he had his hand -- his right hand -- upon Dino's left leg and it was already begin the salination process. The salt exoskeleton was already nearly complete before she even knew what was going on, before Cloak had even entertained the poaaibility!!

"DINO!!" the RAFians screamed.

"I THIRST!!" was the Eterno's reply.

[guitarhero01234]

Oh god. **** just got real

[Cloak]

Well, for the most fleeting of moments.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Thirst Evermore

"I THIRST!!"

"Shut up!" Cloak snarled. His eyes were flickering from his normal amber to golden-scarlet suns. He was trying to master his emotions.

"How'd he even sneak up on us?!" Faerie demanded.

"Parker! You're too close!!" Goom warned.

"Don't worry," Parker said, confidently, "my armor --"

"Can't protect you from everything!" Cloak scolded openly.

Goom swiftly agreed, saying, "Look at those statues! Their clothing were encased in salt too. His touch may only leave an exoskeletal salt shell, but it goes down to to the epidermal layer and it is only then where the salination process ceases! You saw the instruments indicating as much!!"

But Parker was very much like Cloak himself, in that he could be more pigheaded than he had good sense to be. He was sure that his armor would protect him from --

"I THIRST!!"

"Dah!"

The Eterno had clamped onto Parker's leg with an unexpectedly strong grip, which inexplicably loosened. But the cause soon became clear -- Cloak and Demos were hurling fire at the Eterno which seemed to cause his thirst to worsen beyond the point of tolerability. The two pyrokinetics sent the beast, the monster, away. They at least had a weapon against it.

And Parker was wrong. Though he was not fully encased in the salt exoskeleton, his.right leg was, from toe to thigh, was encased in the salt, which did not encroach on any further part of his body. His armor most definitely did not protect him from the salt man's strange saltifying touch.

"I tried to warn you," Cloak groused. "I tried to warn you. But did you listen?"

"Cloak!" Faerie scolded the Realm Walker on his tactlessness.

"I can't feel it," Parker said. "It's not like it's numb or anything. I literally can't feel it. It's . . . it's like it's . . . it's dead."

Cloak bit back a scathing retort, and said, "I think the only cure it the sap from the Methuselah Tree."

"The what tree?" Demos asked.

"I've heard of that tree," Faerie said. "Supposively the source of all water on Earth. But its a myth."

"A lot of things are myths," Cloak said. "Doesn't mean a nugget or two in them can't be true."

[Cloak]

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Preparations to Be Made

"Phoenix, Blaze, and Yarin are coming," Cloak said. "They'll guard Dino and Parked while we go and try to find the Methuselah Tree."

"I don't need guarding," Parker growled.

"Your mobility is greatly reduced and limited," Cloak said, coldly pragmatic. "Your sense of balance is endangered. You will need someone to watch your back, as well as a pyrokinetic to keep you and Dino safe, if the Eterno comes back. If he came back without one, your leg would be the least of your worries, SPARTAN."

Parker grumbled, but couldn't find anything to protest. The logic was sound enough.

"Where is the Methuselah Tree?" Goom asked.

"If that other Realm was anything like the Prime Universe," Cloak said, "than it's that way. But we must wait until Yarin, Phoenix, and Blaze arrive."

"There they are now," Faerie said.

But only Phoenix and Blaze came down, as Yarin remained his ship. He would give the surrounding area a thorough sweep.

"What exactly is this salt man you talked about?" Blaze asked.

"The Eterno," Cloak said. "Said to be a warrior-king in your ancient times, with a thirst for power. Said, in the lust of power, to have sought out the Methuselah Tree."

"Wait, isn't that what we're going to try to do?" Demos asked.

"It's just a legend," Goom dismissed. "Doesn't mean it's true."

"Doesn't mean it isn't either," Demos countered.

"Intention can be a factor," Faerie said. "Some magicks work by the quester's intentions."

"Well, it isn't like the tree isn't guarded," Cloak said, "The creatures are called centiscarabs. I think. I have only seen them once, and, even then, it was a mere glimpse. I think they looked like giant silverfish, if I'm remember correctly. But it may very well be different in this Realm, I'll admit."

"Why was it important for pyrokinetics, specifically, to come?" Phoenix asked.

"The Eterno, was it?" Faerie looked over at Cloak, who nodded, "well, he apparently suffers from a great thirst, but is unable to drink, turning the water into salt or his salt body absorbs it before he could quench it. Fire -- or, more importantly, the heat, I think -- exacerbates this, causing him to flee, to fee some relief."

"Guys, we really should be going," Goom insisted. "We don't know if we have a ticking clock before us."

[redtailedsaffa]

Hey Cloaky, apologies for my absence - it's exam week, so I've been popping in and out of RAF and basically hoarding chapters again. The major portion will get over in two days, though, at which point I can sit and have a nice long read.

[Cloak]

I assumed it was for a good reason like that, actually.

MOST VIEWED THREAD ON RAF!!! At least for the moment. 

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
On Course to the Tree

And so off they went, but it still seemed like an effort in futility. They didn't even know where to start -- which was fortunate, in a way, because if they didn't, then the Eterno did not know either.

But that still presented a little problem, because Cloak's Earthsight seemed a little on the fuzzy side in the sand, and he wasn't even sure he could Earthsight through salt. He wasn't even sure it classified as earth, although he knew it was a mineral. He never had a chance to try it out.

They came to the cave where Liliana found the salt crystal, which was where the Eterno was presumed to have ventured forth from within. That cave was low to the ground, but wide, almost like the maw of a desert-dwelling monster. The RAFians, however were on the opposite bank of the river, now solidly salt, that snaked between them and the cave.

It was about a forty-five degree to a ninety degree angle from this cave tha Cloak noticed something, and something nagged at him. He ignored the nagging feeling in order to prioritize the thing he noticed. A bunch of debris cast a shadow that looked coincidentally like a stag beetle, seen from above. But hidden within that shadow was a narrow cave opening. It was quite easily missed to the casual viewer, who wasn't a Master of Earth.

"Over here, guys," Cloak motioned to the others.

He had to basically point it out, by wiggling into the narrow opening, which was a crevice, really. A crack, a chip in the stone wall. But once inside the chamber proved to be, in actuality, a spacious tunnel where they could all walk comfortably. The tunnel looked almost carved out, as if someone used a terraformer from "Subnautica".

"Let's get going," Goom said, leading the way.

But Cloak hesitated. He looked at the opening and had an instinct to shut and seal it. He silently debated on whether he should do it, eventually concluding that he shouldn't. He decided that it was well-hidden enough, and he was just being paranoid. Yet, it still nagged him.

They went onward, and yet, it still nagged at Cloak, making him feel an anxiety that he hid from the others. They pressed on, until they came to an impasse, at a beach-like setting.

"Well," Faerie said, "where now?"

"That rock formation," Goom said, "the one that looks like a fiddler crab. There's a river flowing into it."

Looking at the direction Goom indicated, then she observed, "That doesn't look like a fiddler crab."

"You're looking at it at the wrong angle, then," he said, matter-of-fact.

"No need to be snotty about it," Faerie sniffed, as they proceed forward. Cloak hesitated a moment, and looked back as if expecting an unwanted intrusion, but none came. He felt sure there would be one, but there wasn't anyone there . . .

Pity, he never thought to Earthsight.